


On The Way To 'Okay'

by squirrel_whisperer



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (is that the ship name?), Black Falcon, Gay Bashing, M/M, Mild torture, PTSD, Post-Civil War, Sam Wilson Needs a Hug, Slash, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, Violence, family team feels, grossly inaccurate portrayal of Wakanda, like super slow burn, rating to go up, sexy trial-by-combat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-10-30 06:56:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10871454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirrel_whisperer/pseuds/squirrel_whisperer
Summary: [EDIT - All appearances of Nakia in chaps 1-4 now replaced with Okoye, hope that's not too confusing but Black Panther #changedme]No one comes out of Civil War unscathed. Sam comes out a little more dinged up than most. Thankfully he's got a team of friends, some old and some new, waiting to help patch him up.Alternative Title - How Sam Wilson Got Back On His Feet And Accidentally Seduced The King of Wakanda





	1. The Raft

**Author's Note:**

> I just want Sam Wilson to be safe and happy.. 
> 
> Eternal thanks to BadgerSigil for cheerleading me through this monster...

It pretty much all goes to shit when Rhodey goes down. For Sam, especially. One second he’s dodging a blast from Vision (and when the hell did things get bad enough for that to even be happening?). Next thing he knows, he’s reliving the worst moment of his life watching Riley fall out of the sky all over again, and he’s still not fast enough, still up there just to watch, just to hear that sickening ‘thud’ of impact from too far away, always too far and shit, Tony’s there leaning over him just like Sam did and Rhodey (Riley) isn’t moving and _it’s happening again oh god no please..._

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out as soon as his boots touch ground. The words force their way past the roiling bile in his stomach, and he knows it’s not enough, his ‘sorry’ is a meaningless insult right now in the wake of what Tony’s lost, but he has nothing else to offer, no other way to make this right. Tony doesn’t acknowledge him, keeps his focus entirely on Rhodey. His fury rolls off of him in thick, tangible waves, and Sam feels that more than the pulsar blast to the chest. He remembers thinking something like ‘yeah okay I deserved that’, but he kind of blacks out afterwards.

  
He comes to in a pair of handcuffs, and Ross’ men are taking his wings. Again. In the distance he can see Barton and Scott being frogmarched into an armoured van, and T’Challa pacing back and forth in front of it. A few feet away Wanda is having some kind of blinking collar put around her neck with Vision hovering nearby looking like he wants nothing more than to step in and rip it off. The spider kid is getting checked over by an EMT who is gallantly trying to manoeuvre around the mask. From the looks of it Steve and Bucky got away, which is good. Mission accomplished. Primary objective achieved, at least.

“You hurt anywhere?” one of the soldiers asks him. Sam is vaguely aware of pain in his torso and a throbbing ache on the back of his skull, but it doesn’t matter, it _doesn’t matter_  because he can’t see Rhodey anywhere.

“Rhodey,” he gasps out, struggling past his tightening throat to even get the air to _ask_. “General Rhodes. Is he okay?”

The soldier doesn’t make eye contact. “Do you require medical attention? Yes or no.” He’s using the de-escalation voice, the same one Sam has used himself to diffuse volatile situations, and it does nothing to calm him down because all it does is confirm that he just asked an awkward question. The cold fingers of dread close around his heart, and he knows, deep in his soul, that the worst has happened.

“I’m fine,” he says, but it’s a lie. Nothing is fine. Nothing is fine, Rhodey’s dead and nothing is fine and Sam _can’t breathe_  oh god…

He’s vaguely aware that the soldier is now yelling for a medic, but it’s a distant observation barely filtering through the sudden blind panic of not being able to draw a single breath. He physically can’t do it, there’s something squeezing his chest and his stomach is twisting and this is it, he’s gonna asphyxiate to death right here on the tarmac.

“Mr Wilson, please remain calm.” Vision is suddenly in front of him, with his shiny red face all scrunched up in concern, and Sam wants to scream. ( _Murderer. Get him away. Murderer!!!_ ) He can’t, though. He can’t even speak, and the world is going dark, way too dark, and for a wild moment he’s scared that the last thing he’s going to see on this Earth is the humanoid manifestation of Tony Stark’s AI butler, but then T’Challa is there instead, which is better. So much better. He feels it all start to slip away just as he manages to fix his gaze on T’Challa’s eyes, which he’s kind of okay with. Dude might dress like a cat, but he’s got nice eyes. There are worse ways to go…  
  
*  
  
When Sam next becomes aware of his surroundings he gets a few blissful seconds of bewilderment before the memories come flooding back. Rhodey going down, Tony’s rage, having a _panic attack_  in the middle of an airfield, shitshitshit.

“Hey man, welcome back.” Scott bumps his shoulder gently. They’re sitting in the back of a moving van with their hands cuffed in front of them. Sam can see Barton on Scott’s right, staring down one of the armed escorts, and Wanda in front of them, strapped in an actual fucking straightjacket, what the _hell??_

“That really necessary?” he asks, waving vaguely at Wanda. Neither of the soldiers flanking her respond, but she meets his eyes and give a brief, sad smile. What else were they going to do with the girl who can manipulate the very fabric of reality? God, Sam feels sick.

“Seemed like a no brainer at the time, huh?” Scott’s smiling softly at him, with his hands resting casually in his lap, but Sam can see the way they’re shaking. He’s trying to play it cool, like he’s still got something to prove, as if it’s a weakness to be fucking terrified right now, and Sam’s heart breaks a little bit.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this,” he says, and he really, really means it. Scott just huffs out a laugh.

“You didn’t drag me, man, I knew the stakes. The Avengers needed my help. I wasn’t going to say no.” He looks down at his hands and takes in a breath, and then grins to himself. “Besides, the guy who gave me this suit absolutely hated Howard Stark’s guts. I’m pretty sure he’d take it straight back if I passed up the opportunity to beat up his son.” Scott turns the full beam grin on Sam then, and it’s ridiculous and cocky and Sam can’t help but give in to the bubble of laughter that tumbles out. If there’s an edge of hysteria to it, no one says anything. No one says much else for the rest of the journey.  


They get taken into a military facility where Secretary Ross himself is waiting in a room full of armed guards. He looks them up and down with obvious disapproval, like a goddamn principal about to scold some schoolkids. “This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen,” he grumbles. Sam wants to punch him _so bad_.

Ross and his men put them all in separate rooms for interrogation. Sam loses track of how long they’re in there for, just getting lost in the barrage of questions he refuses to answer. The whole thing is a joke, as if they would go through all that and then just roll over and give Steve up because some dude shouted questions at them for a few hours. Sam is kind of insulted by the whole thing, to be honest, and he zones out and wonders how the others are doing. Mostly he worries about Wanda. Then eventually Ross comes in and sits down in front of Sam with the heaviest, most condescending of sighs. “You do realise how serious this is, right?”  
Sam glares. “Do I look like I’m laughing?”

Ross flips open a manila folder and takes out some photographs. He lays them out on the table, one by one, and Sam watches as a tapestry of horrors comes together in front of him. He already knows where this is going.

“These are just a handful of murders attributed to The Winter Soldier. It’s safe to assume that there are countless others we don’t even know about.” Ross lays down the last one – a burned out school bus with tiny charred bodies still hanging out the window – and Sam has to grind his teeth together to keep the curses in. “This is who Steve Rogers is protecting. This is what you’re enabling by refusing to co-operate.”

Sam has to admit, it’s an effective tactic. It’s not like he doesn’t have first-hand experience of how lethal Bucky is, he’s fought the guy in full stone-cold assassin mode and it is _terrifying_. Of course, considering the fact that the guy’s last handler was the head of S.H.I.E.L.D _and_  HYDRA, Sam’s not all that inclined to believe that Secretary Ross wants to keep him off the streets for the greater good. There’s no way a man like Ross gets his hands on a weapon like that and doesn’t use it. “You’re wasting your time,” he says. “I’m not gonna tell you where they’re going.”

Ross actually flushes slightly with frustration, and Sam takes some pleasure in that. He tries not to let it show as Ross snatches up the photographs and surges to his feet, then looms over the desk and looks Sam dead in the eyes. “Your precious Captain has left you all to rot in jail while he saves his terrorist boyfriend. Just remember that.” Sam just sneers at him, but there’s a truth there that stings a little more than he’d like. They did the right thing, he doesn’t doubt that for a second, but the price of doing it was way too high. He thinks about Clint’s family, and Scott’s little girl, and how they didn’t sign up for losing their dads like this. He thinks of Wanda slowly collapsing in on herself with that _fucking_  collar. He thinks of Rhodey in a bloody heap on the ground…

“How’s Tony holding up?” he asks, before he goes too far down that road again. It’s a stupid question, he knows, but it’s the first one his brain latches onto, and in spite of everything he does still give a shit. Ross frowns at him, like he can’t work out where he’s even coming from, and then he just snorts and walks the fuck out of the room. Sam wants to punch him even more than he did before.

“He’s out of surgery,” says the guard left in there with him. He glances furtively at the door and then looks ahead again, clearly anxious about being overheard. Sam feels like he recognises him but he can’t focus on figuring out where from, because _what?_

“Who’s out of surgery? Tony? What happened?” His tone is probably less than polite but he can’t help it as the panic starts clawing up his throat again. It didn’t even occur to him that something might have happened to Tony as well, oh _god…_

“No. General Rhodes. They got him stabilised an hour ago.” The guard quickly flicks his eyes to Sam’s face and then looks away again, and Sam realises with a jolt that this is the same soldier that saw him break down on the airfield. “Just thought you should know.”

It takes a moment for Sam to fully process what he’s been told. When it finally sinks in, the relief hits him so hard that he practically deflates, slumping forward onto the desk and burying his face in his arms to hide the tears that have suddenly sprung up out of nowhere. He doesn’t hide the sobs, unable to stop them shuddering noisily through him on every exhale. The poor guard probably thinks he’s completely lost his mind, but he doesn’t care. Rhodey is _alive_. Nothing else matters in the face of that miracle, least of all Sam’s dignity.

“Thank god,” he murmurs into his arms, once the sobs have eased off slightly. He doesn’t lift his head up, too tired to even contemplate moving, but he hears the guard shuffle on the spot to confirm that he is still there. Sam sucks in a shaky breath, pulling deep enough to feel his lungs burn, and then lets it out again in a rush before finally giving in to the exhaustion that’s saturating him down to the marrow. It’s been a hell of a day. He is definitely due a nap…  
  
*  
  
There isn’t a trial. There isn’t even a farcical ruling in front of an anonymous panel of suits. They just get sent straight to The Raft. No passing ‘Go!’ or even thinking about collecting two hundred dollars. Sam isn’t surprised, but he is disappointed. He at least wanted the chance to tell Ross what an asshole he is on some kind of record.

Of course, Sam doesn’t actually know what The Raft is until they get there. When their transport heads out over the ocean, he assumes they’re getting transferred back onto US soil where the good Secretary can keep a closer eye on them. The choppers stop right in the middle of the Atlantic, however, and that’s when Sam starts getting a really bad feeling. That feeling only gets worse once he sees the great concrete monstrosity rise up out of the waves, and he realises that this supervillain base is going to be their new home. It seems a bit excessive, but then he remembers he’s rolling with literal superheroes now. They don’t get regular prisons. They get underwater supermax facilities in the middle of goddamn nowhere, as far away from civilisation as it can possibly get.

“Well that’s a step up from San Quentin!” Scott yells in his ear. Sam meets his eyes, sees the fear buried in there beneath the humour, and very firmly swallows down his own panic, determined to stay cool. If Scott can put on a brave face and crack jokes, then he can too.

“I call top bunk!” he yells back, trying to pull the corners of his mouth up into something resembling a grin. Scott smiles fondly at him, so he figures he succeeded, and then suddenly the helicopter lurches into a descent and Sam feels sick again. He does not want to go in there. It has the look of a place that you don’t come back out of, and Sam is really fond of sunlight. He’s not sure he can handle a life without sunlight. Take his wings, sure, but not the whole damn sky…

“Hey!” Scott’s elbow nudges him in the ribs, bringing him back into the present. He realises he was starting to hyperventilate, and tries to get himself back under control as they touch down. Scott flashes him a practiced smile. “It’s gonna be okay!” He’s lying through his teeth and they both know it, but Sam appreciates the effort. He takes a deep breath as the chopper powers down and tries to chase away the terror. There’s no going back now, so he has to find it in himself to go forward, no matter what.

“Okay then,” he mutters to himself, “Secret underwater super prison. I can do this.” He has no idea how, but at least he’s not on his own. And at least he’s not in a straightjacket like Wanda, _jesus_.

She doesn’t even react as the guards pull her around, manoeuvring her towards the entrance. Clint curses them out the whole time and gets a gun butt to the stomach for his trouble. That lights a fire in Sam’s belly and he lurches forwards, yelling at them to leave him alone, and immediately finds upwards of ten automatic rifles pointed at his head.

“No one move!” the guard in charge shouts over the roar of the ocean. “We have full authorisation to use deadly force if necessary! Co-operate or be deemed a threat!”

Sam can see Scott slowly raising his cuffed hands in surrender, and Clint straightening up with a groan. Wanda hasn’t even flinched.

“Alright!” he says. “We’re co-operating! Just…take it easy with the kid, okay?”

The guard glances over at Wanda and has the grace to look a bit sheepish. He motions towards the door. “Get inside.” One by one, they do, and Sam’s so focused on the guns still trained on them that he forgets to get one last glimpse of the sky. Dammit.

  
It turns out there is no top bunk to call. They all get their very own cells, which Scott declares ‘pretty fancy’. Clint declares them ‘pretty voyeuristic’ based on the exposed front walls. Sam is too busy mentally mapping out the number of steps from one side to the other to comment.

“Clothes are on your beds,” a guard barks. “Change into them and leave your personal effects by the door.”

They’re shoved into their cells and the guards watch them all expectantly. Sam isn’t exactly shy, but he still doesn’t relish the thought of getting undressed in front of these people. He has a pang of sympathy for Wanda before he realises that they’re just….leaving her as she is, strapped into the jacket, and then he’s too angry to give a shit about his own sense of modesty. He strips furiously, holding eye contact with the guard opposite him the whole time. The movement pulls at his ribs, and he can see now that they’re bruised to shit from Tony’s pulsar blast. The guard doesn’t even blink.

“Enjoying the show?” Clint taunts his guard with a little bare-chested shimmy, and Scott sniggers gently. Sam spies the twitch in the guard’s trigger finger, but says nothing. If he saw it then Barton sure as hell did, and he knows he’s been around long enough to know what he’s doing. None of them are stupid enough to miss the fact that this prison is situated in international waters. The Geneva Convention probably isn’t going to mean much here.

Once everyone is dressed, their old clothes and their cuffs are taken away at gunpoint and the cell doors are locked shut. Sam resists the urge to pace in his cell, to try and work off some of the nervous energy that’s built up. He kind of wants to scream, but it won’t do much other than showing him up in front of the guards. Besides, if anyone has screaming rights at the moment, it’s Wanda. Instead he watches as both Scott and Clint flop down onto their bunks and go to sleep. That seems like a good idea. The catnap he grabbed in the interrogation room was nowhere near long enough and Sam is still aching with fatigue, so he follows suit. He expects it to take a while to drift off under the harsh lights, but the old post-mission switch-off routine kicks in and he’s out within seconds. It really has been one hell of a day…  


Sam wakes up shaking, with Riley’s name catching in his throat. His dreams had taken him right back in the middle of it, the way they haven’t done in years, and he blinks to try and clear his head of the phantom of his best friend falling again and again and again. His heart is hammering hard enough in his chest that it hurts. He really hopes he wasn’t crying in his sleep.

“Good morning,” a now depressingly familiar voice calls out. Sam looks up to see Secretary Ross in front of his cell, smirking. “Did you sleep well? I hope so; you’ve got a long day ahead.” He has two mean-looking soldiers with him, clearly black-ops goons, and when Ross nods for the guards to open his cell, they immediately walk in and each put a hand on his shoulders, keeping him firmly sat down on his bed. Ross saunters in after them and fixes Sam with the same disappointed-principal look from before. Sam has a very bad feeling about where this is going.

“You might have noticed that you’re not in Kansas anymore,” Ross says. “This facility was set up in the wake of Loki’s attack on New York, when the world realised we just might need somewhere to keep an actual Norse god prisoner. It’s designed to hold all manners of super powered freaks. We’ve even made it Hulk-proof. Just in case.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

Ross carries on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Of course, the measures required to keep people like that locked up are not exactly the kind of thing that Human Rights groups approve of. Hence our location. These are US marshals running this place, but make no mistake, Mr Wilson. American law does not apply here.”

He pauses for effect and Sam can’t help his snort of laughter. The melodrama is just way too much. “Man, just get to the part where you torture me already. Save everybody’s time.”

Ross smiles slowly, wide enough to show teeth. In spite of himself, Sam feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

“You sure you don’t want to skip straight to the part where you tell me where Rogers and Barnes are? That really would save everybody’s time. Save yourself a lot of pain, as well.”

Sam makes a show of mulling it over, but there’s really no question about that. “Nah, I’m good.” He flashes Ross a quick shit-eating grin, and then without hesitation Goon Number One punches him square in the jaw. He’s still reeling from it when Goon Number Two gets him in the stomach, and that sets his poor abused ribs _on fire_. Distantly, he can hear Clint and Scott yelling for them to stop. They don’t.

“Where are they?” Ross growls. Sam stays silent and takes two shots to the kidneys. Ross sighs. “You know this is a matter of international security. Tell me where they are.”

“Fuck you,” Sam spits out. The next punch gets him just under his right eye, and the one after that busts his nose. Blood splatters on the floor, drips down onto his shirt. He wonders if they’ll move on to the others once they’re done with him. Hopefully he’ll be unconscious by then – he doesn’t want to have to hear that.

“Come on, man! He doesn’t know anything!” Clint is banging on the bars of his cell, sounding beyond furious. Sam’s touched. He didn’t know he cared that much. “Look, Ross, you think Steve didn’t see this coming? We knew you’d catch us. We were just buying him time. None of us know where he is, okay? He didn’t tell us because he didn’t want you torturing it out of us, so you can just _stop_ , okay? Unless you wanna kill a war veteran out of spite…”

Amazingly, that seems to actually get through. Ross signals for the goons to hold off for a second and crouches down to Sam’s eye level.

“Is that true, Sam? Did Steve really keep you in the dark? The best and most loyal friend he’s had since he came out of the ice. The man who stood by his side at Peggy Carter’s funeral. He just sacrificed you along with all the other pawns in this chess game so he could get Bucky Barnes to safety. Really?”

Sam sniffs against the blood dripping from his nose and shrugs. “What can I say? The man’s a strategist.” The look Ross gives him at that is pure disgust. He doesn’t believe him, Sam knows that, but he seems to have lost his taste for watching him get beaten up anyway.

“We’re not done here. I _will_  find out what you know.” Ross stalks out of the cell with the goons on his tail, and shouts over his shoulder, “And you’re not a veteran anymore. You’re a terrorist conspirator and a traitor!”

That hurts more than the punches. Not that Sam still gives a damn about some pension or what the American military thinks of him, but it sucks to think that his mom is going to have to bear that association on his behalf. She was always so proud of him for serving, of having a brave soldier for a son. Now she has a traitor, and that really isn’t fair.

“I really, _really_  hate that guy,” Clint mutters once Ross has left. Sam looks over and catches him staring, like he’s assessing the damage. “You alright?”

Sam sniffs again. His nose hurts the most urgently, but it’s just bloodied, not broken. He’s had much worse. “I’m fine, man,” he says. “Doesn’t even make my top ten ass kickings.”

Clint nods and leaves it at that, and Sam’s grateful. He’s conscious of the fact that Wanda can maybe hear, and he really doesn’t have it in him to sell it any harder.  
  
  
  
A few hours later Sam finally gives in to the urge to pace, because fuck it. His ribs hurt too much to get comfortable on his bunk, and the ceiling isn’t interesting enough to keep his mind off worrying. He keeps circling between thoughts of Steve and Bucky facing Zemo alone, and Rhodey lying broken in a hospital bed, until he just can’t sit still anymore. He has to get up. He manages three laps of his cell before the control room doors open and Tony comes breezing in, calm as anything. He at least looks as shitty as Sam feels, which isn’t surprising.

“Hey, it’s the futurist! The futurist, everybody!” Clint starts slow-clapping and gets up off his bunk to face Tony head on, daring him to stop and look him in the eye while he lays into him. To Tony’s credit, he actually does, but then Tony has always given back as good as he gets. Sam tunes them out, mostly because he can actually feel Clint’s anger scraping away at his own, leaving him all raw and exposed. It’s hard not to resent Tony for letting Ross put them in here, for rolling over so _easily_ , but he doesn’t want to get mad at him. Not after what happened to Rhodey. It’s not like the guy isn’t suffering too.

“How’s Rhodes?” he asks, once Tony makes it over to him. He gets it out quick, before he can lose the nerve. He can’t even meet Tony’s eyes, but he has to _know_.

“They’re flying him to Columbia Medical, so…fingers crossed.”

Tony’s voice is painfully flat, giving nothing away besides how much he doesn’t want to talk about it. Sam shakes his head, but he didn’t really expect any better, considering. At least if Rhodey was definitely paralysed or something then Tony would be throwing it in his face instead of playing hardball. “What do you need? They feed you yet?” Tony asks casually, way too casually, and the anger that Sam’s resisting flares up before he can stop it. Anyone would think that Tony’s just visiting a buddy in lockup. Did they _feed him yet?_  Jesus Christ, where does he think they _are_?

“You’re the good cop, now?” He turns around to face Tony at last, lets him see the fresh bruising on his face in all its technicolour glory. Tony’s jaw sets, but he doesn’t flinch.

“I’m just the guy who needs to know where Steve went.”

And that’s it, the real reason Tony’s here. Sam suspected as much, but the confirmation still boils his blood. He can’t believe that _even now_  Tony’s still dancing to Ross’ tune. “Well you better go get a bad cop, because you’ll have to go Mark Fuhrman on my ass to get information out of me,” he snarls. He doesn’t mention that Ross has already tried that. He doesn’t have to.

Tony sighs and holds up his wrist, showing Sam his fancy StarkTech smartwatch. His fingers swipe across the surface, hitting a few buttons and doing _something_  or other, and then the guarded look drops from his face and he’s all business again.

“Well, I just knocked the ‘A’ out of their AV. We got about thirty seconds before they realise it’s not their equipment.”

At first Sam doesn’t understand, and then Tony’s bringing up some images, keeping them firmly out of view of the security cameras, and he realises that he may have misjudged the situation.

“Just look,” Tony says. “Because that is the fella who was supposed to interrogate Barnes. Clearly, I made a mistake. Sam, I was wrong.”

“That’s a first.” The snide retort comes out more or less on a reflex, but inside Sam’s stomach is swooping. He knows what Tony looks like when he’s on a mission to put things right, and this is very much beginning to resemble it.

Tony drops his arm and leans in closer, eyes softening although his voice stays steady. “Cap is definitely off the reservation, but he’s about to need all the help he can get. We don’t know each other very well, you don’t have to…”

Sam cuts him off. “Hey, it’s alright.” He knows where he and Tony stand. They’ve never exactly been bosom buddies, but they’ve always had Steve’s friendship in common. That hasn’t changed. “Look, I’ll tell you, but you have to go alone…and as a friend.” He looks Tony straight in the eye and holds the contact, looking for any sign of hesitation. Tony doesn’t even blink.

“Easy,” he says. Sam nods, satisfied.

“Alright then.” And then he tells him everything he knows.

 

When it’s done, Tony breezes out again, and as Sam watches him leave he feels something like hope fluttering delicately in his chest. If Tony’s listening to them again, playing Ross from the inside, then maybe things aren’t all shot to hell after all. It’s a slim chance, but they’ve had worse odds before. All Sam can do now is wait.  
  
*  
  
Three weeks pass. Three long weeks of nightmares and worry, and Sam quietly losing his mind beneath the fluorescent lighting. At first Scott tries to get a conversation going, but the guards quickly shut that down. Apparently talking amongst themselves is no longer permitted. After that, everything sort of runs together in one monotonous loop. They wake up, they eat breakfast, they eat dinner, they sleep. Same again the next day. And the next. The only variation in the routine is when Ross decides to drop by with some heavies to try roughing Sam up again, and even that drops off after the first couple of times. Sam tries not to think about what that might mean for Steve, if Ross has given up looking for him.

They’re not allowed to talk, but they still manage to communicate. Clint keeps him updated on Wanda via a crude system of raised eyebrows and head shaking. She doesn’t improve, but she doesn’t seem to get worse, although Sam’s not sure how much worse she can get past ‘catatonic’. When Sam wakes up from a nightmare about Riley and he can’t keep up with his own thundering heartbeat, nine times out of ten he looks up and sees Scott pulling ridiculous faces at him. They don’t always make him laugh, but they always tease out a smile, and that’s enough. It makes him feel less shitty about waking the others with his terrified screams and jumping every time the doors clang open.

Sam has just about lost track of how much time has actually passed when they get rescued. He’s staring at some vague spot on the wall, thoughts swirling with echoes of his latest nightmare, and then he’s suddenly aware of heavy footsteps moving towards his cell. He tenses, but there’s something about them that’s different to the usual clipped thud of the guards’ boots, and they don’t sound like Ross’ dress shoes clacking on the floor. They’re softer, more cautious, and Sam slowly turns around to see who it is approaching.

His heart soars when he sees Steve’s beautiful dumb face emerge from the shadows, smiling all crooked and coy like he’s just come to ask Sam to sneak out of his parent’s house.

“Well, this looks cosy…” Steve says, glancing around the facility with a fake-impressed nod. He looks great, better than Sam’s ever seen him, brighter in his eyes somehow, and that’s how Sam knows that Bucky’s still alive and Zemo’s taken care of. They won and Ross didn’t.

Sam grins, hard enough that his cheeks burn with the unfamiliarity of it. He can barely contain the rush of emotions all fighting for dominance in the face of Steve Rogers, alive and well and standing right in front of him after weeks of hell. Sam never doubted that he’d come for them, but the reality of surviving this place had shunted the possibility of it from his mind, and he almost can’t believe he’s actually here. “Took your damn time,” he finally manages to choke out. Steve ducks his head, still smiling.

“I know. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

Sam throws his arms around Steve the second his cell door opens, and it feels so _good_  to have those arms wrap around him in turn, warm and solid and _safe_. It’s the best hug he’s had in his whole damn life, although it’s possible that he’s biased on account of the three weeks of not being touched by another human being outside of getting punched.

“It is so good to see you,” he can’t help but murmur into Steve’s neck. He’s being clingy, he knows, but Steve doesn’t seem to mind. He just laughs and squeezes back just as tight.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner.”

Finally, they let go of each other with the obligatory manly back slap, and then they get the others out. Steve’s face crumples with devastation once he sees the state of Wanda, and Sam’s heart breaks because this wasn’t his fault, but he knows he’s going to beat himself up for it anyway.

“Do we know how to get that off?” Steve asks, voice low and brittle.

Clint shakes his head as he slowly guides her over to them, unfastening the straitjacket as he goes. “We don’t even know how it works.”

“I could figure it out, though,” Scott offers. “If I got a closer look?” His eyes automatically fall on Steve, silently asking for permission, as everyone instinctively seems to do in his presence. Steve takes it in stride and frowns, considering.

“Not here. We don’t have the time.” He steps forward and joins Clint in supporting her, sliding his arm around her frame with characteristic gentleness. “Do it on the plane. We have to leave before the guards start coming around.”

Steve leads them out through the control room, past scores of unconscious bodies crumpled on the ground. Sam does a visual sweep as they go, partly out of habit and partly out of paranoia. He clocks a few resilient guards already starting to stir, but no one even comes close to being able to stop them and they manage to reach the landing pad without incident.

Clint lets out a low whistle once they see the transport Steve brought. “Now where the hell did you get that thing?”

It’s definitely not a standard quinjet. Sam’s never seen anything like it before. It looks more like a giant metal bird than a plane, with wings made of gleaming blue panels fanning out like feathers, and a sleek metal body coming up to a pointed silver beak at the cockpit. Steve presses a button and the two rings joining the wings to the plane come shuddering into life, revealing them to be…hover engines? What the hell?

“Courtesy of our new friends in Wakanda,” Steve says, only looking a little bit smug, and Sam does an honest to god double take.

“Wakanda? Seriously? Since when did we have friends in Wakanda? Last I checked, their king was pretty committed to ripping Bucky’s head off.”

Steve shrugs. “He changed his mind.” And then without any further explanation, because Steve is an _asshole_ , he strolls onto the jet, beckoning for them to follow.

Sam and Clint share a look of confusion, but there’s no hesitation beyond that. They climb aboard, Steve shuts the door behind them, and just like that they’re in the air, successfully escaping from The Raft. Thank god…  
  
*  
  
Scott does manage to work out how to get the collar off, and he makes quick work of it once Steve hands him his penknife. As soon as it’s off, Wanda blinks a few times and then hauls in a lungful of air, like she’s been drowning this whole time. They can actually see the life coming back into her eyes as she fights her way back to them.

“You okay?” Clint asks quietly. Wanda shakes her head.

“No,” she says, voice rasping with disuse. She takes in a few more deep breaths, each one less shaky than the first, but there is a steely calm in her face that Sam recognises all too well. “No I am not okay. But I will be.” She turns to Scott. “Thank you for removing that thing.”

Scott waves a hand. “Ahhh, it was no problem. Really simple circuitry, actually. Just had to cut the right wire, interrupt the current powering the main processors….and a quick ‘you’re welcome’ would have done there, sorry. I’m babbling. I guess not being allowed to talk has left a pretty hefty backlog. Gonna shut up now. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Wanda’s mouth twitches at the corners, almost resembling a smile but not quite getting there. Her eyes slide shut and she leans back against her seat with a sigh, and Sam watches the small tendrils of power dancing around her fingers while she methodically clenches and unclenches her hands. He tries to imagine how she’s feeling right now, slowly getting back in touch with a part of herself that’s been shut off for weeks, but he can’t. He just hopes she was as out of it as she appeared to be. Being that trapped and actually being aware of it? That’s a kind of torture way beyond his comprehension…

  
After an hour in the air, Steve flips on some kind of autopilot function and takes the opportunity to fill them all in on what happened after they were caught. Clint swears under his breath at the part where it turns out the Winter Soldier killed Tony’s parents, but Sam’s more intrigued by the fact that apparently T’Challa went from thirsting for bloody vengeance to magnanimously sparing his father’s killer in the span of five minutes.

“So Zemo’s in jail and T’Challa’s granted Bucky asylum? Just like that? No questions asked?”

“Just like that. And it’s not just Bucky. We’re all welcome in Wakanda as long as we need somewhere to go. Which…might be a while.”

“Might be forever….” Clint grumbles. Next to him, Wanda’s eyes have gone wide.

“All of us are welcome? Even me?”

Steve’s face goes soft. “Yeah, even you.”

Wanda’s lip wobbles for a second. She wraps her arms around herself and stares at the floor, breathing in deep through her nose and slowly out her mouth. Clint rubs circles into her back while they wait for her to process. It doesn’t take long. “Okay,” she says. “We go to Wakanda. What then?”

“Well, first of all we take the time to look after each other and heal up. I think we’ve definitely earned a vacation at this point. Then we regroup. Figure out where we’re still needed, try and build some bridges. T’Challa says the Sokovia Accords haven’t held up too well in the wake of how the UN handled things, so we should be ready for whatever that means for us.”

Sam rolls his eyes. Trust Steve to hold out hope that they can still come back from the shit-show of the past month. Still, he knows better than anyone what a little hope can do for the soul, so he keeps his doubts to himself, and tries to picture what Wakanda has in store for them. He has to admit, he’s kind of excited. It’s a place he’s always been curious about, and their mysterious cat suit-wearing monarch has only raised further questions for him. The idea of living there for the foreseeable future feels crazy, like stepping into a fairytale, but compared to facing the rest of his life in The Raft it’s no contest. He just hopes that whatever T’Challa wants in exchange for harbouring their fugitive asses isn’t too high a price to pay. Not that there’s much left to lose now.

  
The plane isn’t big enough to house sleeping quarters – it appears to be some kind of Wakandan stealth fighter, so clearly not designed with passengers in mind. Still, one by one Clint, Wanda and Scott all curl up in their seats and drift off into a blank, exhausted doze. Steve stays at the helm and Sam, unable to let himself join the others and rest, takes the co-pilot seat. He compulsively scans the horizon, keeping his eyes peeled for even the slightest hint of trouble coming their way. Steve, being Steve, notices what he’s doing.

“You’re not sleepy?” he asks. Sam hears the ‘are you okay?’ hidden between the lines, and he wants to be honest with him, wants to confess to the levels of fear and paranoia currently running riot through his head, but he’s not quite ready for the deep furrow of worry and guilt to appear between Steve’s eyebrows. He’s seen it way too much lately.

“I’ll just feel a lot better when I’m on solid ground again,” he says, and it’s as much as he can admit to right now. Steve seems to understand, and reaches over to squeeze Sam’s shoulder. He doesn’t say anything else, just waits for Sam to meet his eyes and then gives him that trademark Captain America smile of reassurance. Strangely, it actually works. Sam’s finds himself returning the smile, although his eyes don’t stray from the skies for too long. His heart feels a little lighter though, and that’s something. That’s a start.


	2. Wakanda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are flying cars, awkward dinners and an ill-advised jogging session...

Sam half expects it to be a trap. He has this moment of panic as the plane doors open where he’s convinced Secretary Ross will be standing there, waiting to drag them back to their cells, but it doesn’t happen. The only people waiting for them on the field are T’Challa and a few terrifying-looking women that Sam assumes are his bodyguards, the Dora Milaje. He nods to Steve as he steps out of the plane.

“Captain Rogers,” he says.

“Your highness,” Steve replies, and they shake hands like old friends, as if it wasn’t a mere few weeks ago that T’Challa tried to claw Steve’s face off. They let go with a smile and T’Challa turns to the rest of them. His eyes are warm as they sweep over the group, though they sharpen slightly when he takes in the bruises on Sam’s face. His smile falters but doesn’t quite fall, and he maintains enough regal composure to gracefully dip his head in formal greeting.

“Welcome to Wakanda. Please, accept our hospitality for as long as you require. You will all be safe here, on that you have my word.” He directs this last part straight at Wanda, who has one hand firmly clenched in the hem of Clint’s shirt, but Sam feels his gaze snap back to him for a second, before widening out to the whole crowd again. “You must all be tired from your journey. Please, allow Okoye to show you to the rooms we have prepared. I must attend to my duties, but I will come and see you later, if that’s agreeable. I am eager to become acquainted with you all…outside of the battlefield.”

T’Challa allows himself to smirk at that, playfulness dancing easily on his face in a way Sam never would have expected to see on a king welcoming internationally wanted fugitives to his home, and then with another formal dip of his head, he takes his leave. Two of the scary women go with him, flanking each side in total synchronicity until they reach a fancy looking car, and then they’re all driving away on a road cut through the surrounding trees. Sam has absolutely no idea what to make of any of this.

“Please, come with me.” Okoye makes an impatient gesture and then walks off towards another car without checking to see if they were following. She is wearing simple loose clothes, clearly designed for ease of movement but with an elegance to them that seems characteristic of Wakandan style. So far Sam’s only seen the plane and two cars, plus the building in the distance that he assumes is an aircraft hangar, but from what he can tell it’s all about sleek, clean lines and flow, with very few blocks or corners. It feels organic rather than man-made, even in objects that very clearly are man-made, and he finds that he really appreciates it. It’s…soothing.

The car just about fits everyone in and the engine purrs to life, turning over so smoothly it’s practically humming. Sam takes a moment to revel in how jealous Tony would be if he knew about all the cool new tech they were seeing here, before he realises that the car is driving straight towards the jungle, with no road opening in sight. The trees are way too thick to drive through, and a quick glance at Scott reveals that he’s not alone in thinking they’re about to crash.

Just as he’s about to start yelling in panic, two wings fold out on either side of them, the car jolts upwards as boosters kick in on the bottom, and then suddenly they’re gliding smoothly over the trees. Okoye laughs unrepentantly.

“We do things differently to what you are used to, I take it?” She smirks over her shoulder at them. Sam can only imagine what their faces are doing, but it’s clearly very amusing.

“It’s a flying car…” says Scott, his voice trembling in awe. “We’re in a _flying car…_ ”

Steve turns to Sam and smiles. “Now _this_  is what the future is supposed to look like.” His eyes are twinkling in delight, and he looks far too much like a kid at Christmas for Sam’s liking. It’s cute as hell, but he cuffs him on the head anyway for being sassy.

  
The car flies over miles of jungle until they reach a luminous city nestled deep in the centre of it. Other cars buzz around like gleaming insects, somehow following invisible but ordered trajectories in the sky. The buildings rise smoothly from the ground, a jarring collection of metropolitan structures springing up from within the wild. It’s like Jumanji and The Jetsons had a baby. Sam can’t quite believe it’s even real.

“Birnin Zana,” Okoye announces. “The Golden City. Capital of Wakanda. You can see the Royal Palace at its heart. This is where you shall be staying, within the guest quarters. They are quite close to where I and the other Dora Milaje sleep. We will, of course, be keeping an eye on you.” She says this with a seriousness that makes the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck stand up. It occurs to him that while T’Challa seems happy enough for them to stay, his fellow Wakandans might not feel so generous. He makes a mental note to stick close to Wanda, just in case, although considering the current state of him he’s not sure who would end up protecting who should things go south.

The palace itself is a towering structure of glass and steel, standing taller than any other building in the city. It kind of reminds Sam of the Space Needle, except squat and full of windows, and with what looks like a tiny patch of jungle on its roof. He would never have called that a palace without being told, but he can’t deny that it does look impressive. T’Challa suits it, that’s for sure.

They land discreetly at the service entrance, and Okoye ushers them inside before they can draw too much attention from passing sky traffic. She leads them into an elevator that silently whisks them upwards and spits them out about ten stories up. The view is _spectacular_. Floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the city below, with miles of lush jungle canopy stretching beyond the horizon, and daylight bathes the entire hallway, glinting off keypads placed next to a progression of fancy mechanical doors.

“Your rooms,” Okoye explains, gesturing at the doors. “One for each of you. You decide who goes where. On the floor below is a dining hall and kitchen for your use. Also a gymnasium. The floor above is where you will find me and my sisters, but I do not advise trying to do so unless requested. Here are your keys.” She hands a pile of transparent blue key cards to Steve, and then steps back towards the elevator. “May you find your stay restful,” she says, and then she abruptly leaves them to it. Sam gets the impression she was not entirely happy about being stuck with hostess duty. He can’t really blame her.

Steve holds up the keys in his hand and waves them. “Anybody have a preference?”

Sam snorts. “Yeah, just give me the one furthest away from Bucky’s room and I’ll be fine.” He holds his hand out for Steve to drop one into, but then he sees the way Steve’s shoulders have tensed and he realises he’s just said exactly the wrong thing.

“Bucky isn’t…he’s not…” Steve’s voice is tight as he tries to find the right words and Sam panics a tiny bit, because Steve said Bucky was alive and well but clearly _something_  went wrong and that is not okay, they sacrificed so much for him to get him back. He waits patiently while Steve rubs at the back of his neck and huffs out a self-deprecating laugh, shakes his head and then looks up to meet Sam’s eyes directly.

“Sorry,” he says. “Bucky’s fine. It’s just that he’s not staying here with us. He asked T’Challa to put him back in cryo, until we can figure out a way to yank all the Hydra programming out of his head. He’s in a freezing chamber in one of the labs. So…pick whatever room you want, I guess.”

Steve throws on his casual, overly bright ‘I’m really super fine!’ smile, and Sam’s heart aches for him. He pulls him into a firm hug before the asshat can even open his mouth to start insisting that he’s okay. “Sorry, man. That’s gotta be tough for you,” he murmurs, keeping his voice level and free of pity. Steve stiffens for a second before his whole body just _sags_  into it.

“Yeah, it kinda sucks.” He sighs, and Sam feels the warmth of it rush against his neck. “But he’s alive…” Steve pulls back then, and his face is doing the exact same thing it was doing the last time he said that, when he was staring at Bucky on a screen and stubbornly counting whatever blessings he had left. Sam nods in understanding.

“So which one’s yours, then?” he asks.

Steve smiles. “End of the hall.”

Sam takes the room next door.

  
The ‘rooms’ are actually full-blown luxury suites bigger than Sam’s entire apartment back in D.C. He spends about a minute standing in the middle of his, taking it all in and feeling way too small to deserve any of it, but soon enough his body seems to suddenly catch on to everything it’s gone through in the last few weeks and he is _tired_. So unbelievably tired. He shuffles over to what he assumes is the bedroom, acknowledges nothing in there except for the giant, fluffy bed and collapses face-first onto it with a deep groan of relief. He falls asleep instantly, with his legs still dangling over the edge and his face smushed onto the covers. He’s so drained he doesn’t even have the energy to dream.

When he wakes up, it’s to an insistent chirping noise coming from the front door and searing pain around his ribs (passing out with his entire weight on top of still-healing bruises was admittedly not the smartest move he’s ever made). The chirping keeps going, and with an incoherent grumble of protest Sam hauls himself to his feet and staggers out to see what it is. Turns out there’s an intercom for the front door, and Steve’s face is patiently looking out at him from the little monitor. Sam blinks, looks for a speaker button and presses the first thing he finds. The chirping stops.

“Wassit?” he grumbles.

“Hey, we’re all meeting T’Challa in the dining room. Clint’s rustled up some food. You feeling up to it?”

Sam isn’t feeling up to much more than crawling back to his bed and maybe getting under the covers this time, but he can also hear his mom’s voice telling him that he’s a goddamn guest here and he should be polite and show his face. His stomach also chooses that moment to start growling so loud that Steve must be hearing it over the intercom.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll be right out,” he mutters, and then he looks down to see if he’s presentable enough for dining with a king. He’s horrified to realise that he’s still wearing the prison scrubs from The Raft, and that he also doesn’t have anything else to change into. He’s never felt so bizarrely adrift in his life. “Hey, Steve!” he blurts out, just before he disappears off screen. “You got any clothes I can borrow?”

Steve turns back to the camera and smiles gently. “Way ahead of you, buddy,” he says, and he points to something out of sight on the floor before sauntering off again.

Sam opens the door and sure enough, there’s a pile of clothes waiting for him in the hallway, neatly pressed and folded, along with his combat boots and the watch his mother gave him for graduation. Things he’d last seen being taken away by guards at The Raft.

“Steve, you beautiful son of a bitch,” he mutters, overwhelmed with affection for him. Of course the idiot took the time to find their personal effects in the middle of a jail break, the goddamn maniac…

  
Sam makes his way down to the dining room twenty minutes later, freshly showered, shaved and dressed in his own clothes. The smell of whatever Clint’s cooked wafts down the hallway, heady and sweet with spices, and hunger hits Sam like it hasn’t since before they found Bucky. It feels good, almost normal, just to want something as simple as food again.

“Hey, you made it!” Clint waves Sam over to sit next to him at the _ridiculously_  large table and fixes him a plate. The dining room stretches out over the length of a tennis court, with a gorgeously carved mahogany table taking up most of it. Everyone’s seated around the one corner at the end closest to the door, halfway through their plates already.

“What are we eating?” Sam asks, as Clint puts a plate of something hot and fragrant under his nose.

“I don’t really know, but it tastes okay,” is Clint’s typically obtuse answer, and Sam shrugs and starts shovelling it in his mouth.

It tastes…pretty much like everything Clint’s ever cooked for him, which is ‘chaotic but surprisingly palatable’. There’s pepper and garlic and the sweet heat of some chillies, plus some bitter, savoury vegetable that Sam can’t quite place, and tender, marinated mystery meat. As far as Sam’s concerned it’s the best meal he’s ever eaten, and he wolfs it down so fast that it’s not long before he’s overtaken everyone else and cleared his plate.

He looks up once he’s finished and realises that directly across from him is T’Challa, watching him with a raised eyebrow and a barely suppressed smirk.

“Hey,” Sam says through his last mouthful. T’Challa gives up on suppressing the smirk.

“I am pleased to see you enjoying our hospitality,” he says. The playfulness is back on his face, and Sam can’t tell if he’s being made fun of or not. He bristles slightly, but T’Challa holds up a placating palm and continues. “Do not misunderstand, I genuinely am pleased. Wakanda owes all of you a great debt. If we can offer you a place of comfort and safety, after everything you have endured, then it is our pleasure to do so.”

Sam doesn’t miss the way T’Challa’s eyes fall to his bruises again, and he feels anger boil up in his stomach at the realisation that he’s being _pitied_.

“Not to sound ungrateful, your highness, but you don’t owe us shit,” he says. 

It’s possible that he says it a bit too loudly. It’s possible that the last few words come out as more of a hiss. He realises his fuckup as soon as he’s finished speaking, but he is just so past having the energy to care, and even though the others are looking at him like he’s just given T’Challa the finger, the king himself shows no signs of taking offence. He simply sits there, calmly regarding Sam with a fierce intelligence in his gaze.

He can almost feel those eyes probing right down to his very core, and he wants to squirm a little, but doesn’t. He just stares back, until T’Challa seems to have come to some conclusion about what it is he’s looking at, and sighs.

“I apologise. I did not mean to agitate still-healing wounds. But you are wrong about ‘not owing you shit’ as you said. When my father was murdered, I gave myself over to grief and anger, and it became all that I was. It blinded me to the truth. And if you had not done as you did, then I would never have found justice for him. I would have simply brought more unnecessary death to a world already heaving with it, and so I must thank you, and I must seek to make amends for what you suffered in uncovering the truth, as I am doing for Mr Barnes. I consider that my honour, and I do not mean it to diminish yours.”

T’Challa rises smoothly from his seat, maintaining eye contact with Sam, and Okoye and another Dora Milaje materialise next to him. His gaze stays locked on Sam for a moment, some emotion flickering behind his eyes too quickly for Sam to get a read on, and then he turns to the rest of the group and gives a gentle bow. “I’ll take my leave now. It was good to meet you all. I shall let you recuperate in peace.”

“Thanks, T’Challa,” Steve says, very pointedly, and Sam immediately feels guilty for biting the guy’s head off for no real reason. He takes a breath, ready to apologise, but T’Challa is already striding out of the room with his bodyguards, and Sam’s courage drains from him as quickly as his guilt sprung up. He runs a hand over his face with a muffled groan.

“I didn’t mean to be like that…”

Clint gives his shoulder a quick squeeze. “Hey, we’ve only been out one day, man. You get a post-prison grace period, it’s cool. Can’t reintegrate with society straight off the bat.”

“I can actually vouch for that,” Scott pipes up. They’re both grinning at him, and he can’t help but smile back at the gentle ribbing. Steve’s got his head cocked in his best earnest golden retriever impression, which Sam does _not_  want to deal with right now, so he deliberately doesn’t look at him and checks on Wanda instead. She’s hunched defensively over her food but gazing right at him with an expression on her face that always, _always_  means trouble.

“He wasn’t feeling sorry for you,” she mutters, lips quirked up at the corners in a knowing half-smile. And then she stands up and takes her plate out of the room before Sam can even try and work out what she’s talking about.

“Was that supposed to make sense, or…?” Scott asks, pointing at the now empty doorway. Sam just shrugs helplessly, and then Steve reaches over the table and takes his plate with his eyebrows pulled together into the classic Steve Rogers furrow of concern.

“You know if you wanna go get some more sleep, it’s fine,” he says. He starts gathering other empty plates and stacking them, presumably on dish duty. Sam opens his mouth to protest out of pride, but he can’t deny he’s still tired, and clearly grouchy with it, so he lets the argument die in his throat.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll probably do that.” He gets up and thanks Clint for the food, and then with great relief, Sam heads back to the sanctuary of his bed.  
  
*  
  
Riley plummets to his death and he’s got Rhodey’s bloodied face, twisted around a hopeless scream. Tony blasts Sam to hell and back while Ross tuts in the background. ‘This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen’ he says, but he’s laughing and Sam can’t breathe through the miles and miles of ocean he’s drowning in, can’t even hope to reach the surface before his lungs burst right out of his chest and it _hurts so much he can’t breathe please god someone help him please…_

“Sam!”

He snaps awake at the solid weight of Wanda’s hand closing over his ankle, desperately gasping for air. His first instinct is to kick her away, but she smooths her thumb just above his heel with a firm, grounding pressure, and he remembers where he is before he can give it a solid try.

The sheets are damp with sweat, twisted around his legs where he’s been thrashing in his sleep, and he’s too worked up to meet Wanda’s eyes. He guesses it was too much to hope that the nightmares would stay away for just a little bit longer.

“You were only dreaming,” says Wanda as she gently perches on the edge of the mattress. Her hand moves from his ankle to his wrist and just rests there. Reassuring. Careful. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Sam nods at her, still trying to catch his breath and get his heart rate somewhere close to normal again. It takes a moment or two, but Wanda is patient with him.

“Please tell me I wasn’t screaming…” he says eventually, even though what he really wanted to say was ‘thank you for pulling me out’. Wanda shakes her head, looking almost fondly at him.

“If you’d been screaming, you would have woken Steve up.”

Sam supposes that’s true. Super soldier hearing has its drawbacks. “So how’d I wake you up?” he asks.

“I was already awake. I sensed your fear from outside. Thought I could help.” She looks down and tucks her hair behind her ears, taking her hand away from Sam’s wrist to do so, and Sam takes the chance to rub the sleep from his eyes and really look at her for the first time since they all got out.

It’s still dark, hours before dawn, and her face is mostly hidden in shadow, but he can make out the bags under her eyes, the chipped nail polish on her fingers, and the gaunt curve of her cheekbones. In the moonlight with her pale skin she looks almost wraith-like, but her eyes are bright and warm against the tired bruises, and Sam is struck all over again by her quiet, stubborn strength. She’s not okay, but she will be. He believes that, but more importantly, so does she.

“You did help,” he says. “Thank you.” He reaches out to where her hands are resting in her lap and laces their fingers together, squeezing once in gratitude. She smiles at him.

“Would you like some cocoa?” she asks.

Sam thinks about going back to sleep, but he knows it probably won’t happen, and if it does the nightmares won’t be far behind him. From the looks of Wanda, sleep isn’t coming easy to her either. They might as well keep each other company.

“Hell yes, I’d love some cocoa. Lead the way!” He throws off the sheets and pads after Wanda out of his room, their fingers still loosely entwined. It’s only then that it occurs to him to ask how she even got in. Her answer is to roll her eyes and waggle her fingers through the air, leaving wisps of scarlet in their wake.  
Needless to say, Sam is very glad to count her as a friend rather than a foe…

  
Cocoa turns into playing paper football on the kitchen’s giant breakfast island, which turns into a half-hearted tickle fight after Sam accuses Wanda of cheating (he saw the thing glowing red, goddammit!). Wanda misjudges a grab at Sam’s poor abused ribs, and she spends at least five minutes apologising after he yelps and doubles over in pain.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he insists, because it is, because he’d been _laughing_  and so had she and he actually feels _good_  even though he’s still so damn tired. He loops an arm around Wanda’s neck and pulls her in to settle against his side, keeps her held there until she stops reaching for where she hurt him and just tucks her face against his collarbone, accepting the hug. “We’re fine,” he says.  
“I know,” she whispers.

  
Steve finds them a few hours later, slumped up against a kitchen counter and fast asleep. He looks apologetic when Sam jerks his head up off Wanda’s shoulder at the sound of the refrigerator opening, but Sam waves him off as soon as he’s orientated himself.

“That time already, huh?” he says, gesturing at Steve’s running shoes. He sits forward and works out a crick in his neck, using his other arm to hold Wanda up while she scrubs at her face and slowly comes around. Steve’s eyes flit between the two of them, taking in their sleep rumpled faces and the triangles of paper scattered on various surfaces. He grins.

“You feel like joining me? It’s been a while since I’ve run rings around you.”

Sam glares, because it’s honestly been years and the smug bastard still chirps out ‘On your left!’ during missions like he’s the most hilarious thing around. But he’s right, it has been a while, and Sam could probably use a good run to get his head straightened out a little. “Sure, why not. What about you, Wanda?” He nudges her with his elbow. “Gonna come along?”

Wanda just yawns and makes a deliberate beeline for the coffee machine. Sam takes that as a ‘no’ and leaves her to it. He definitely knows better than to get between her and her morning caffeine fix.

  
Steve takes him all the way up to the roof, or more specifically to the private garden housed on top of it. Sam feels the humidity of the air smack into him the second they step out of the elevator, the heat of it an actual heavy weight on his skin. There wasn’t really the chance to take in the scenery on the way to the palace, and Sam feels a little staggered now, standing in the midst of some of the most lustrous foliage he’s ever borne witness to. He didn’t realise a place could actually _smell_  green…

“It’s really something, huh?” Steve’s grinning at him, casually leaning against the trunk of a twenty-foot tree as he stretches out his hamstrings (as if he needs to).

“Have you been running here every morning?” Sam asks, looking around at all the different plants making up a symphony of colour around them. He recognises a few, like the bright orange birds of paradise lining a small alcove next to a bronze cat statue, but most of them are just unfamiliar enough that he knows they’re native to Wakanda alone.

Steve shrugs. “Not every morning. T’Challa let me come up here after I told him I was bored with the treadmill. To be honest I think he just wanted to show it off.”

Sam wouldn’t blame him. The place is _beautiful_ , and he knows it’s put some stupid awestruck look on his face because Steve won’t stop smirking at him, cheeks creasing around the laugh he’s very politely not letting out.

“Alright, Chuckles, let’s get going,” he grumbles, giving his muscles a quick warm-up stretch before setting off on a gentle jog in probably the wrong direction. Steve catches up to him in no time, wordlessly leading him down a path on their right that appears to circuit the entire garden.

Sam quickly loses himself to the steady rhythm of his feet thudding against the ground and the warm rush of blood pumping through his body, but it’s not long before he realises his error. The heat brings him out in a sweat almost immediately, and within a couple of minutes every breath he sucks in starts feeling a little more laboured. Steve, predictably, isn’t affected at all. He’s still going strong two laps in, while Sam is straight up wheezing through the burn and soaked right through. He has to stop and flop down against the nearest tree before he falls down.

“You okay?” Steve asks, jogging on the spot in front of him, skin just about glistening with a thin layer of moisture. Sam hates him.

“I can barely keep up with you in regular temperatures, let alone dragging my ass through nature’s goddamn sauna!” he snaps. And then, because he’s not an asshole, he adds on, “I’m fine, just gotta wait for my lungs to re-inflate. You go on, I’ll catch you up.” He shoos him off with a smile, and Steve tosses him a quick salute before setting off again. Sam takes the time to just _ache_  in private. He lets his eyes slide closed and drifts for a while in the droning buzz of cicadas, practically melting against the tree.

  
He’s almost starting to feel relaxed when he hears someone clearing their throat nearby, and he’s instantly alert again, wrenching his eyes open to see who’s approaching. Turns out it’s T’Challa, on his own for once, dressed in some fine-looking workout gear that clings sinfully to every angle and plane of him. The stupid cat suit was actually doing him a disservice, _damn_ …

Sam realises he’s been caught staring when T’Challa tips his head to the side and looks at him the same way he did at dinner, all twinkly with amusement. Sam immediately flushes with embarrassment.

“Hey there,” he croaks out, throat catching around how thirsty he is. He is painfully aware of the state he’s in, sweat-drenched and still breathing kinda heavy, and the embarrassment intensifies. Seems he just can’t catch a break to make a good impression on this guy _at all_.

“Are you alright?” T’Challa asks. There’s laughter in his voice, and he unclips a flask from his waist and offers it to Sam with a warm smile. Sam accepts it gratefully and takes a long gulp, and it takes a significant amount of willpower not to sigh out loud at the satisfaction of the fresh, cool water blissfully restoring him.

“Better now,” he says. “Thanks.” He goes to hand the flask back but T’Challa shakes his head and points at the ground next to him.

“Do you mind if I sit with you?”

Sam shrugs. “Not really.” He’s surprised T’Challa even wants to be around him after yesterday, but he’s not gonna be an ungracious bitch two days in a row if he can help it, so he pats a spot in invitation. T’Challa sits down, effortlessly folding his legs into the lotus position and closing his eyes for three, deep breaths. Sam finds himself mimicking the breathing pattern without even meaning to, and he feels lingering tension leak out of him on every exhale. It’s nice. _Really nice_. Almost peaceful…

“I presume Steve brought you up here to join him on his run?” T’Challa says after a moment. His eyes are still closed but his face has turned incrementally towards Sam, and the smirk is back. Sam huffs out a laugh.

“Yeah, he did. I didn’t realise it would be so…” He waves a hand around while his brain searches for the most diplomatic way of describing the Wakandan atmosphere, but all he can come up with is ‘sticky’. Luckily, T’Challa jumps in for him.

“Challenging?” he says, and the smirk has been dialled up hard enough to etch out laughter lines on his cheeks. Sam is stunned for a second by just how _young_  T’Challa looks when he lets his guard down.

“Yes. Challenging. That’s…yeah.” Sam clears his throat and takes another sip from the flask to cover his sudden awkwardness. T’Challa’s eyes snap open and watch him as he drinks, which doesn’t really help the situation, and not knowing what else to do, Sam just mechanically offers him the flask back again.

This time, T’Challa takes it and nonchalantly brings it up to his lips for a quick swig. Sam tries desperately not to acknowledge the thrill that goes through him at T’Challa’s mouth being where his mouth had been only seconds before. It’s not a big deal, he’s just surprised by such casual intimacy from a _king_  is all. It’s probably not even a thing in Wakanda, being so weird about swapping spit. He’s probably just projecting all kinds of American uptightness onto this, no need to read into it like that.

  
Except he doesn’t understand how this guy could have gone from the stone-cold death machine of their first meeting to the twinkly-eyed young man sharing water with him in the dirt, all in a matter of three weeks. Sam remembers being an angry, bitter mess for _months_  after Riley died. It took two separate interventions from his family to drag him back out again. But then, Sam never had an entire country depending on him to keep his shit together…

“Look…” he starts, suddenly racked with guilt for last night. “I’m sorry for snapping at you before. You didn’t deserve that.”

T’Challa shrugs. “I didn’t take it personally. Besides, I recall attempting to throw you under moving traffic when you put yourself between me and The Winter Soldier. You _definitely_  did not deserve _that_.” He grins, benevolent and bright, and Sam feels something loosen in his chest in response. He knows friendly teasing when he sees it. This is familiar enough ground.

“Yeah, well I guess you’re doing a pretty great job of saying sorry so far. Putting us up in your fancy palace and all…”

He nudges T’Challa with his elbow without even thinking about it, and T’Challa smiles at him, clearly delighted at him playing along.

“It’s my second best palace,” he says, voice pitched low like there’s maybe some hidden meaning there. Sam snorts.

“Yeah okay. Don’t think having multiple palaces is going to impress me, I was hanging out with Tony Stark before all this went down. That man’s richer than God. I’m immune to obscene displays of wealth now.”

T’Challa’s face does something complicated that Sam can’t quite figure out, and then he drops his gaze to the ground, chewing on his bottom lip like he’s trying to keep something from spilling out. Sam worries that he’s offended him somehow, but then T’Challa’s mouth curls back into a gentle smile and he looks back up at Sam with nothing but amusement in his eyes.

“Yes, Wakanda is familiar with how the Starks throw their money around. Howard Stark obtained a small amount of vibranium from us many years ago, after much resistance. I believe it became the shield he gave to your Captain America. Not the worst use I’ve seen it put to, I’ll admit.” T’Challa pauses to take another drink from the flask, and in the quiet Sam can’t help but feel like he’s missed something, but he doesn’t get long to think on it before T’Challa springs a question on him out of nowhere. “So what does it take? To impress you?”

“What?”

“You said ‘obscene displays of wealth’ do not impress you. I am curious to learn what would.”

Sam doesn’t know how seriously to take the question, unsure if he’s still being teased or not. T’Challa seems to radiate calm sincerity the same way that Steve radiates wholesome earnestness, but Sam learned the hard way about Steve’s mile-wide streak of sass hidden beneath the public persona. He’s not judging any books by their covers these days.

“Well, the flying cars are pretty cool…” he answers after giving it some thought. It’s the most neutral thing he can come up with to admire. T’Challa lets out a low chuckle and shakes his head.

“That’s interesting. I would have thought a man used to his own wings would have found such things inelegant?”

Sam shrugs. “I guess a man used to his own wings is in the habit of defying expectations.”

T’Challa hums in agreement, dark eyes roving thoughtfully over Sam with an intensity that sends another thrill down his spine.

“Yes, I suppose you would be...” he says, and Sam is suddenly one hundred per cent absolutely sure that he’s being flirted with.

“Uhhhh…” is his very eloquent response, because _what the hell???_

  
  
Thankfully Steve chooses this moment to come bounding up to them, _finally_  out of breath after his run, and with his presence a sense of almost-normality is reinstated.

“Morning, your highness!” he puffs, giving T’Challa a little wave. T’Challa returns it and then Steve points a finger at Sam. “Thought you were gonna catch me up?”

Sam rolls his eyes at the smugness. “Man, don’t make me smack you…”

teve just grins unapologetically. Then he seems to properly realise that T’Challa is there and the grin falls into a grimace. “Uh, is it okay? That I brought Sam here? I know you said I could use it but I didn’t ask…”

T’Challa stops him with a flap of his hand. “I don’t mind. You are all welcome to use these gardens. Just know that they are patrolled at all times by Dora Milaje, though you will never see them.” He flashes his teeth on a smile, more mischief than menace, and then he rises to his feet. “Speaking of whom, I must be going now. Okoye gets annoyed when I fall behind schedule.” He nods at Steve and turns back to Sam and says, “I hope you acclimatise soon, Mr Wilson.”

There’s that playful smile again that Sam has absolutely no idea what to do with now, and he actually feels goddamn flustered, like the hormonal teenager he hasn’t been for _decades_.

“Call me Sam,” he blurts out without thinking. His voice comes out about three octaves too low and it actually cracks on the last word and oh god Steve saw all of that, Sam is so _fucked_.

T’Challa smiles, like he just won something. “Well in that case, I am T’Challa, not ‘your highness’.” His eyes flick towards Steve – Sam gets the impression they’ve had a _conversation_  about titles before – and then he gives Sam one last smile before he jogs off into the trees.

Steve lasts a grand total of seven seconds before he rounds on Sam with his eyebrows raised halfway towards his hairline and his arms folded across his chest.

“Oh god, shut up!” Sam groans, even though he knows there’s no way of stopping what’s coming.

“I didn’t say anything.” Somehow the eyebrows go up even more, and Sam can see the little tick in Steve’s jaw where he’s clenching around a laugh.

“Your face is saying it all. Stop it.”

“Stop what? I didn’t see anything unusual there. Just you and the King of Wakanda…sittin’ by a tree…” Steve’s voice goes all sing-song and Sam is just too old and tired for this kind of bullshit to be carrying on.

“Nuh-uh. No. We are NOT doing this. I’m serious. Desist.” He tries to get his feet underneath him to stand up and retreat back inside, but he misjudges the movement and pulls too sharply on his injured ribs. He quickly collapses back down with a grunt. Steve is instantly crouched in front of him, face serious and concerned.

“What’s wrong? I didn’t push you too hard, did I? I know you keep joking I’ll be the death of you one day, but…”

Sam shakes his head. “No, this is just…” and he stops, suddenly realising that Steve doesn’t _know_. He wasn’t there to see what Tony did, or what Ross’ guys did to him, and it would probably kill him to find out. Sam can’t do that to him. He’s not giving Steve another stick to beat himself with if he can damn well help it.

“Nothing,” he lies. “It’s nothing, I’m still sore from the fight, is all. Some of us only have regular human healing, you know. It takes a bit longer…”

Steve frowns. “It shouldn’t take that long. Is it your ribs? Should we get them looked at?”

At first Sam outright refuses because he’s honestly fine, there’s no need for Steve to be pulling The Face, but Steve is way more stubborn than he is, and he stands his ground the way that only Steve can. After that it’s only a matter of time before Sam gives in and lets him cart him off to T’Challa’s private medical facility, just to give him some peace of mind.

 

And that’s how he finds himself being admitted to hospital for a week…


	3. Healing Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam tests the patience of the Wakandan medical professionals, Steve is the least subtle wingman, and an old friend rocks up with presents for everyone...

It turns out that Sam’s been walking around with three fractured ribs and a minor abdominal hematoma. When he tells the doctor he’d been out running before, she makes some kind of strangled noise and pinches the bridge of her nose, muttering under her breath in Wakandan, before ushering him into a bed and announcing that he is officially under medical observation. Steve just sort of prowls in the background with a face like thunder while the medics do their thing.

“Was this Tony?” he asks all-too-calmly, once it’s just him and Sam in the room again. “When he…I mean…I heard about what happened to Rhodey…”

Sam sighs. He knows Steve isn’t that dumb, that he’s just giving him an easy lie to hide behind, god bless him, and it’s so tempting to take it. But Sam can’t bring himself to do that. Not when Steve _knows_  he’s hiding something. “Come on man, you know if this was from Tony it would have either killed me or healed by now.”

Steve drops heavily into a chair next to Sam’s bed and stares down at his hands. “Yeah, I know.” He starts kneading a thumb into his palm, keeping his eyes cast down as he absently increases the pressure. Sam waits him out. He watches the skin turn pink and raw as Steve tries to find his next sentence, and he braces himself for the coming question.

“This was Ross, wasn’t it? In The Raft?” Steve doesn’t look up, which Sam is grateful for, but he still flinches at the words finally being spoken out loud. Still feels a yawning pit open up in the bottom of his stomach at the memory of that goddamn bushy-faced geriatric and his stony eyes, just watching as the fists smashed into Sam’s sides over and over and over again.

“Yeah,” he says, and clears his throat. “Yeah it was Ross. Although technically he never actually got his hands dirty…”

Steve scoffs. “Figures…”

“He wanted to know where you were. Brought a few heavies along to try and convince me to part with that information. Didn’t work, though. Assholes broke my ribs but they didn’t break _me_.”

Sam tries for a cheerful tone and misses it by a hair, but Steve finally looks up from his hands and makes eye contact, which is good enough. Sam can see his mind whirring, can see the anger and the guilt swirling around behind those big blue eyes, but Steve is _letting him_  see, and that’s important. Sam can work with that.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says.

Sam can’t help but smile at his predictability. “I know you are, but you don’t have to be. This wasn’t down to you. This was all Ross. You hear me, Rogers?” Sam reaches out to shove gently at Steve’s shoulder, and Steve nods weakly, but his thumb is kneading his palm again. Sam rolls his eyes. “Look, man, I knew the score, and I made my choice. I stand by that choice. Especially now, after going through what I did. I do not regret my choice, okay?

It’s easier to say now that he knows that Rhodey is alive, and Wanda’s out of the collar. And if anything was likely to convince him he was right not to trust Ross and his ilk, then being disappeared under the Atlantic Ocean and tortured was sure as hell gonna do it. Sam wonders which page of the Accords that little detail was buried in, and how many UN officials knew they were signing off on it…

  
Time gets a little fuzzy after that on account of the painkillers. Steve leaves at some point, and others drift in. Wanda brings Sam some fruit and sits there eating it while he tries to keep up with the game of cards that Scott and Clint start up on his bed. Medical staff come and check up on him, and at some point he falls asleep. When he wakes up again, it’s the middle of the night. The room is dark and quiet, and his visitors have long gone. He isn’t, however, alone.

“T’Challa?”

The man standing in the doorway shifts on his feet and steps forward. He is dressed in a deep blue smock shirt with a geometric white pattern embroidered around its neckline, and straight, black slacks that hang loose around his legs. Both hands rest in his pockets. He’d look relaxed and comfortable if he wasn’t frowning so hard.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” T’Challa says. “Word reached me that you were here, but matters of duty kept me from visiting until now.” He removes his hands from his pockets and rubs at the back of his neck, and Sam realises that what he took for an air of relaxation was actually fatigue. He must have had a really long day, and he still came to see Sam at the end of it. Sam doesn’t really know what to think of that, but the painkillers have loosened him up enough to blurt out the first complete sentence that pops into his head.

“What time even is it?” he slurs.

T’Challa grimaces. “Late enough.” He moves to stand at Sam’s bedside, in front of the chair Steve and Wanda sat in, and hovers awkwardly. “Are you…alright?”

“M’fine…” Sam points at the chair and tells T’Challa to sit, which he does, immediately, as though he had simply been waiting for permission. Sam finds himself a little charmed. “S’nice you came by. Being all busy with…king stuff.” He realises at this point that he’s probably a little loopy on the meds, and once again he is making an ass of himself in front of T’Challa, but T’Challa doesn’t seem to mind and just laughs gently.

“It would be neglectful of me not to check in on my guest when he is hospitalised, would it not?” He leans forward, elbows resting on his knees and hands clasped between them, and Sam swears he can feel the prickle of his eyes slowly scanning up and down his body. The twinkle from earlier that day is gone, and instead T’Challa’s gaze is nothing but flint.

“You were tortured, then,” he says after a moment, and it’s not a question. “I suspected as much.”

Sam breathes in and swallows down the anxiety that starts fizzing up at the thought of _talking about this_ , but then he picks up on how T’Challa’s voice is completely void of the pity he’d been expecting, and he suddenly remembers Wanda’s smirk at dinner. He knows now what she had been trying to say. T’Challa hadn’t felt sorry for him when he was looking at his bruises. He’d been _angry_. Just like he was angry now. But why?

“You sound pissed about it…” Sam prompts. T’Challa nods.

“I expected better from so-called ‘civilised’ nations. And I’m angry about our part in it.” T’Challa sighs and hunches over in his chair, playing idly with his father’s ring. He pauses, seems to take a moment to steel himself, and then continues. “My father was involved in negotiations from the start. This place you were sent to, it seemed like a sensible necessity at the time, as a last resort. But the things practiced there…please know that we did not condone that. Torture goes against everything Wakanda stands for – it’s a tool of cowardly tyrants. That is not our way.

Sam wants to reach out and touch T’Challa’s shoulder, tell him the same thing he told Steve about choices and absolve him of all this unnecessary guilt, but he gets distracted by the moonlight glinting off the ring and just watches as T’Challa twists it round and round his finger. He wonders if it feels right yet, or if he’s still reminded of his father every time he looks down and remembers it’s there.

“You miss him,” he says, without entirely deciding to.

T’Challa stills. “Yes, I do.” He doesn’t look up from his hands, but Sam can hear the overwhelming pain tremoring through those three words. He can also see the exhaustion weighing down on T’Challa’s shoulders, and through the medicated fog a thought occurs to Sam that this is a very vulnerable, tired man sitting beside him.

“Should sleep,” he mumbles. T’Challa clears his throat and sits up to face him.

“Yes, you are right, I should let you rest, I’m sorry…”

“No,” Sam lifts an arm to try and poke at T’Challa’s chest. Sort of makes it. “You. You should sleep. You look done in, man...”

T’Challa’s eyes narrow in confusion, and then slowly they soften, like melting chocolate. The amused twinkle is back. “Are you trying to tell the King of Wakanda it is his bedtime?”

Sam shrugs. “Depends. Does the King of Wakanda need tellin’?” He’s smiling, and his words are coming out slow and syrupy, which is kind of ruining the whole cool, unimpressed thing he’s going for, but T’Challa rewards him with a grin so wide and bright that Sam finds he really doesn’t care. He’s definitely putting that one down to the painkillers.

“I suppose he might…” T’Challa says, after stifling a yawn that makes Sam raise a very pointed eyebrow at him. He stands up, chuckling softly, and then he reaches down and rests his hand briefly over Sam’s wrist. “Heal well and heal quickly, my friend.” And then his hand is gone, and so is he, and Sam is left to fall asleep with the lingering sensation of warmth he left behind. He’s already drifted off before he registers that T’Challa just called him a friend.

 

  
Sam gets bored of the hospital _very quickly_. They lower his pain meds after he tells one of the nurses that their hands are softer than a kitten’s whiskers (not the most embarrassing thing he’s said to a medical professional, but it cracked Clint up all the same), and once he’s not floating on the ceiling anymore, it’s a lot more difficult to keep himself entertained. Steve visits as often as he can, which isn’t surprising, but what is surprising is that T’Challa does the same.

Every day, without fail, whether it’s just before his morning run or in between meetings with advisors, T’Challa carves out some time to come down and see how Sam is. This happens for a week. It’s beyond surreal.

At first T’Challa sticks to polite pleasantries, enquiring about how Sam is holding up and wishing him well. But then Steve starts suddenly needing to be immediately elsewhere whenever T’Challa arrives, giving Sam a really-not-subtle thumbs-up as he goes out the door, and T’Challa doesn’t hesitate to take the cue.

He stays a little longer each time (apparently much to Okoye's frustration), asking Sam about how he met Steve and what it’s like to fly, and a bunch of in-depth questions about how the wings work that Sam is _just about_  qualified to answer. It occurs to him halfway through explaining the Redwing drone that he’s revealing a whole bunch of classified information to a foreign power, but he figures he’s already a traitor, so fuck it, right? Besides, the way T’Challa’s face lights up as they get into the finer technological details is practically magical. Totally worth it.

“I read physics at Oxford,” T’Challa tells him. “Although I also spent much time at their Department of Engineering. It was fascinating to learn how the rest of the world approaches technology design, completely different to us. I always admired how Western militaries managed to achieve their results with such inelegant methods…”

Sam tries not to feel too patronised by that, and he gets a little stuck on the image of a young, fresh-faced T’Challa being shipped off to England for schooling. The picture doesn’t fit with the snarling warrior he fought a while ago, but this bright-eyed, curious T’Challa…Sam has no trouble placing _him_  in a big library, burying his nose in a dusty old book. It’s a cute thought.

“Why Oxford?” Sam asks later. “It had to be so far away from what you knew.”

T’Challa smiles. “That was the point. My father believed it was important for me to see the world beyond our borders, in order to appreciate home that much more. He realised that by shielding ourselves so thoroughly from the outside world, we had cut ourselves off from all the good in it as well as the bad. He wanted me to learn as much as I could, and bring it back with me to make our country even greater. It was a controversial move at the time, but he was right to do it. We were beginning to forget what our enemies look like.”

He goes quiet then, looking down at the floor. His fingers gravitate towards his ring, quickly tapping at it a few times before they still, and Sam knows exactly where his mind has drifted back to even before he murmurs, “We remember now...”

  
That conversation takes place on Sam’s last night in the hospital. The doctor signs him off the next morning, with clear instructions not to be an idiot and ignore a serious injury like that again, and Steve and Scott both come by to walk him back to their rooms. The nurse with the whisker-soft hands catches him as they’re leaving and asks for a moment alone with Sam. He complies, and gets handed a business card.

“My cousin,” the nurse explains. “A specialist in emotional healing. I told him to expect you, I hope that isn’t overstepping…”

Sam thanks the guy and then quickly makes his escape, suddenly feeling a bit overwhelmed. The card is just a name and what looks like an address, etched on the same translucent material as their keycards, but it feels like a lifeline he didn’t even realise he’d been grasping for. He tucks it safely away in his pocket and lets the smoothness between his fingers ground him as he walks back to his friends.

“You okay?” Steve asks him, just as he catches up with them.  
Sam takes a moment to consider.

“Not really,” he responds. He ignores the flash of concern that ripples over Scott and Steve’s faces and continues, “But I will be…” He really means it, feels the certainty warming through his bones, and he can’t help but think of Wanda on the plane with those defiant crimson ribbons flowing around her fingers. Going by Steve’s wry smile, he’s thinking of much the same thing.

“Well, alright then. Good to know…” Steve slings an arm around Sam’s shoulder and subtly supports him as he walks along. Scott ambles along on his other side, head cocked.

“Is that some unofficial Avengers catchphrase or something?” he asks, just a little too earnestly.  
Sam snorts. “I guess it is now, Tic-Tac…” It comes out more fond than mocking, but hell, Scott’s probably earned a few passes by now…  
  
*  
  
It doesn’t really occur to Sam that a whole month has already passed until Natasha turns up.

“I was kinda hoping you would have forgiven me by now,” she says to an unimpressed-looking T’Challa. No fewer than ten Dora Milaje surround her with sparking electric lances as she kneels before him in the throne room, looking as diffident as Natasha ever does, which is to say ‘not a lot’. She’s handcuffed and outnumbered, but as usual Sam has no doubt that she’s the one in control of the situation. The whole ‘calmly strolling into the royal palace after successfully sneaking over the border’ part kind of backs that up as well.

“You truly are a brave woman for coming here. What exactly is your purpose?” T’Challa demands, voice calm but full of steel. He sits forward on his throne, hands clasped beneath his chin as though pondering what to do with her.

Sam starts chewing helplessly at a thumbnail, unsure of what exactly he’s supposed to be doing here. The whole gang was unceremoniously summoned as soon as Natasha presented herself, and he can’t help worrying some kind of example is about to be made. He’s experienced the agony of Natasha’s spider bites, completely by accident when he made the mistake of messing around with her cuffs one time back at Avengers HQ. If he’d been in T’Challa’s place and taken _three_  hits from those babies, he’d be phenomenally pissed, no doubt about it.

“Please understand, I’m not here for trouble. I’m here for my friends.” Natasha looks over at them then, and Sam sees her catching Clint’s eye with a smirk. “I miss them…” Clint smirks back, and Sam is so done with the pair of them, honestly…

T’Challa narrows his eyes, but stays otherwise dangerously still. “So you come here, after breaching the Accords and violently attacking me, to seek clemency? I fear you may have overestimated my benevolence, Miss Romanov…”

Natasha holds her palms up in appeasement. “That’s why I brought gifts…” she says, and she slowly twists her arms around to reach her back pocket. It takes all her flexibility, but eventually she manages to extract a thumb drive, which she displays clearly to everyone in the room before tossing it a few feet in front of her for one the Dora Milaje to pick up. Okoye gets there first, and she inspects it thoroughly before deeming it safe enough and handing it to T’Challa.

And what would this be?” he asks.

“Information. Specifically it’s all the information you’d need to be able to see the forces of the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre coming. Should you need it…”

T’Challa hums and closes his fist around the thumb drive, but keeps his eyes fixed on Natasha. Calculating. “If this is true…then you give me an advantage over those you once called allies. This makes me question your loyalty even more than I already do. How exactly am I supposed to trust a spy, Miss Romanov? Especially one who so easily betrays her country.”

Natasha shakes her head. “I’ve never been loyal to countries. Just people. And right now the few people left on this earth who have my loyalty are dependent on your good graces. But it really is up to you whether you choose to trust me or not. I’m entirely at your mercy, your highness.”

Silence. Neither Natasha nor T’Challa look away from the other, and the tension in the room heightens with each passing second. It’s a battle of wills now, and Sam suspects that not even Natasha can hold her ground against the iron will of T’Challa. His pride was wounded that day at the airport, that much is clear. But just how much is he going to make Natasha pay for it?

  
“You should thank her!” someone shouts, and suddenly everyone in the room turns to stare at Sam because _oh for the love of god_ , it was him! “I mean…well, you know …” His mind goes completely, devastatingly blank, and all he can hear is the thunder of his panicked heartbeat throbbing in his ears. Okoye in particular fixes him with a frustrated glare, grip tightening on her weapon, and Sam quickly seeks out a friendlier face to focus on while he figures out what the fuck he’s trying to do. He lands on T’Challa, because of course he does, and he sees that same bewildered amusement again. For some reason that actually soothes him, and the static lifts from his mind. He takes a breath.

“Come on, man. You know what would have happened if she hadn’t stopped you. You can’t thank us for uncovering the truth and punish her for doing the same.”

T’Challa hums again, pressing the fist with the thumb drive against his mouth and meeting Sam’s gaze with a furrowed brow. His eyes glimmer with heat, and for a moment Sam is convinced that he has seriously fucked up here, but then he catches a brief twitch in T’Challa’s cheek and realises that the asshole is trying not to openly smile at him. He also realises when he sees Okoye subtly rolling her eyes at her king that he’s not the only one who noticed, which is…disturbing. To say the least.

“You make a frustratingly good point, Mr Wilson,” T’Challa says after an unnecessarily long pause of consideration. “But my people are a proud people, and we do not take insults lightly. I cannot allow Miss Romanov to simply stroll in to my home and buy my forgiveness with this.” He turns the thumb drive over in his fingers and then pockets it, before standing up and prowling over to Natasha. “There is one condition under which I can grant you asylum here. Beat me in combat. Prove yourself an honourable warrior, and an honourable woman, and you can stay here with your friends.”

Natasha tilts her head. “And if I lose?”

“Then your freedom is forfeit.”

That seems to be all Natasha needs to hear. She agrees to the terms without hesitation, and before Sam can even wrap his head around the ramifications, the floor is being cleared and T’Challa has disappeared to change into something less formal. Okoye removes Natasha’s cuffs and maintains some pretty intense-looking eye contact while they wait.

“Know that I will tear you apart if you injure him in any serious way,” she mutters, just loud enough for the room to hear. Natasha’s response is to smile sweetly and stretch out her deltoids. Sam’s nail-chewing intensifies.

When T’Challa returns, he’s wearing the same workout gear from the rooftop and carrying two long staffs. He tosses one of them at Natasha and she snatches it smoothly from the air, tests the weight of it with a swift twirl, and then settles into a combat stance. T’Challa mirrors her, and the room goes very, very quiet.

  
  
T’Challa moves first. He swings for Natasha’s right flank and she blocks with ease, making a counter sweep for his legs that he jumps over. They keep testing each other with simple swipes for a few moments, the clack of their staffs echoing through the room in a stuttering rhythm, and then something in T’Challa’s posture shifts and suddenly the fight begins in earnest. He moves with inhuman speed and grace, immediately putting Natasha on the defensive as she fights to keep up with the furious onslaught, but she holds, and within seconds she’s giving as good as she gets.

At one point she manages to pin T’Challa’s staff beneath her own, and he actually _growls_  just before he brings his foot down on the centre of it and snaps it in half, thigh muscles rippling through the force. Sam, to his shame, actually lets an involuntary whimper escape at that point, and he can only pray that everyone else was too enthralled by the fight to notice.

After that it devolves into a whirlwind of movement, with Natasha duel-wielding her staff fragments and T’Challa getting more worked up as the fight goes on. He lands a hit to her shoulder and she lands one to his stomach. He knocks her to the floor and then gets a boot to the face. Before he can fully recover from that, he’s got Natasha’s thighs wrapped around his neck and she’s using her momentum to haul him to the ground, in a move Sam’s seen take out countless hostiles before. He winces when T’Challa hits the floor with an audible thump, and several Dora Milaje hiss through their teeth in distress, but the fight isn’t lost. Natasha sits astride T’Challa’s chest, with the halves of her staff crossed across his throat, but the end of T’Challa’s staff is also pressed defiantly against her jugular. No one moves.

“We didn’t settle on what happened if we tied…” Natasha pants, voice hoarse from the wood jabbing into her neck. T’Challa laughs breathlessly beneath her and lets his staff clatter to the floor.

“An oversight on my part, clearly…”

Natasha casts her weapons aside and gets up with a stifled grunt. T’Challa accepts her offer of a hand up, and he keeps their hands clasped together once standing, turning it into a formal hand shake.

“You have earned your welcome here,” he says. “Take care not to squander it.” And just like that, Natasha’s officially back with them, no more questions asked.

  
Clint scoops her up into a bone-crushing hug as soon as she reaches them, muttering into her hair, “Wondered if you were ever gonna show up.”

She snorts and closes her eyes as she squeezes him back. “Oh ye of little faith…”

Sam can’t help smiling at the scene, even though his head’s still spinning a little from the fight. It’s good to see Natasha safe and sound, and it’s great to see Clint genuinely smiling again, but he can’t help feeling that the whole thing was just a little too easy, and any minute now it’ll be snatched away again. It doesn’t help when in the corner of his eye he catches a couple of official-looking dudes shaking their heads at them before storming out of the throne room, leaving the rest of their peers looking nervous and uncomfortable.

T’Challa frowns after them, but when he turns and sees Sam looking he just smiles reassuringly. The smile stays as he waves them all out.

“Go. Settle in and rest. I have a country to run now,” he says. There’s a sense of satisfaction about him, with his eyes still bright with adrenalin and his lips curling around a grin as he probes at his rapidly darkening jaw, and Sam is all too happy to take that as a sign that he’s just being paranoid.

If T’Challa’s feeling okay about what just went down, then Sam trusts that. It’s enough for him to let it go and follow the others back to their rooms.

And if, on his way out, he sneaks in one last peek at the king in that outfit with his chest still heaving a little under each breath? Well, that’s just him making sure T’Challa’s as relaxed as he thought. Nothing more.

  
  
They all automatically gather in the dining room. Natasha makes sure she greets everyone, including Scott, who seems more than a little freaked out by the Black Widow casually shaking his hand like a normal person, but she takes her time with Wanda.

“If I’d known what Ross had in store for you,” she says, “I never would have helped him. I don’t expect forgiveness, but I just want you to know that I have no intention of letting him sleep easy after that.”

“Neither do I,” Wanda responds, and both women smile wickedly at each other before embracing like long-lost sisters. Behind them Clint nods, probably in approval of the reunion or the promise of revenge, Sam isn’t sure, but he agrees with the sentiment either way.

“By the way, I brought presents for you guys as well.” Natasha opens up a rucksack that Okoye reluctantly returned to her on the way over and pulls out a hologram-projecting StarkPad, which she places on the table where everyone can see. She loads up the video player and selects a file. “I have a few messages for people. Got as many as I could without drawing attention, which isn’t as many as I’d have liked…”

Her eyes flick to Sam then and he knows without a word being said that she didn’t make it out to his mom. He tells himself that’s fine, that she’s safe and that’s all that matters, but it still stings.

“Anyway, the first one’s from Hank Pym. You wanna take this in private, Scott?”

Scott immediately scrambles closer to the table. “What? No, no that’s cool, we’re all a team, right? What’d he say?” Natasha shrugs and presses play, and then Hank Pym’s image starts floating in mid-air before shuddering to life. When the audio kicks in it sounds a little tinny, but the voice is clear enough.

“Hi Scott. I’ve just had the _privilege_  of being visited by Natasha Romanov, formerly of S.H.I.E.L.D and The Avengers Initiative. Apparently you’re on the same team these days? Anyway, she brought me back the suit that you so carelessly allowed to fall into the hands of the US Government. Remember that suit? The one I gave you under the strictest instructions that you NOT do that?”

By this point Hank is all but shouting, and Scott has visibly paled. The only thing stopping Sam from laughing is the fear that he’ll miss whatever Hank says next.

“So you lost the suit, but even better, you’ve also managed to become an internationally wanted fugitive. I am in total awe of your unparalleled ability to _screw things up_. I mean, I thought I had a rough idea of the scale of your idiocy, but boy have you proved me wrong! Nice work, Scott. Absolutely stellar fucking job. And as for Hope? If you think you’re coming within so much as a mile of my daughter again I swear to god…”

“Okay!” Scott lunges for the pad and shuts Hank off mid-sentence. “I think that’s maybe enough. For now. Thanks anyway. I’ll, uh…I’ll watch the rest later.” He shrinks back and folds himself into one of the chairs, shoulders heavy and slumped. Sam immediately feels bad for finding it funny; the poor guy looks crushed.

“Hey,” Steve says. “We’re grateful, even if he isn’t.”

“Yeah, we couldn’t have done it without you,” Clint adds. Scott just stares down at the table, so Sam sits down across from him and raps his knuckles on the top to get his attention. When Scott finally does look up, Sam pulls the first dumb face he thinks of, with crossed eyes and puffed out cheeks, and he holds it until Scott breaks out into a weak smile, and then a laugh.

Natasha glances over. “If it helps, that message was recorded three weeks ago. He’s probably calmed down a lot since then,” she says as she queues up the next message.

Scott sighs. “It doesn’t, but thanks.”

The next couple of messages are from Laura Barton and Sharon Carter, and unsurprisingly both Clint and Steve elect to listen to them on their own. Steve comes back faintly blushing, with a little bounce in his step that he’d been missing before, and Clint comes back wiping his eyes but standing tall.

After that, all that’s left is Natasha’s grand finale: the goddamn Hydra code book for Bucky, which last time Sam checked was all locked up deep in the heart of the JCTC vaults.

“Does Everett Ross know this is missing?” Sam asks.

“By now? Probably. Might also know about the virus I planted to wipe out all the digital copies they made. Too late to do anything about it, though.”

Steve takes in a deep, shaky breath as Natasha hands him the book. “So this is it? All that’s left?”

Natasha nods. “I made absolutely sure of it. Couldn’t risk anyone else having that power over him again.”

Steve makes a weird half-choked noise and then Natasha is promptly swallowed up by two hundred pounds of blonde beefcake. He hugs her until he gets his breathing straight again, and she doesn’t resist, just lets him cling on as long as he needs.

Sam suspects that she went to all that trouble out of a healthy fear of The Winter Soldier more than a desire to help Bucky, but the end result is still the same. It’s another glimmer of hope for Steve to hold onto, and as far as Sam’s concerned, that shit’s always worth the risk.


	4. Talking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam has a lot of feelings and Bastet gets a midnight show

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I am very, very sorry this took so long. I am the worst. I've run out of pre-written content and started a new job at the same time and I have no self-discipline and...there are other excuses but just have a chapter I'm sorry...

Over the next few days, Steve spends most of his time in the lab watching over Bucky while the scientists try to figure out how to use the codebook to help him. Wanda takes up a pretty intense training regime with Natasha, while Clint cheers and/or heckles from the side lines, and T’Challa gets wrapped up in a flurry of official engagements for some upcoming Wakandan holiday. It means Sam and Scott are largely left to their own devices and, luckily for Sam, Scott’s fond of both company and making delicious food for said company to eat. After a few stacks of Scott’s signature pancakes and a half-hearted food fight, Sam stops thinking of Scott as ‘the weird-ass new recruit’ and starts thinking of him officially as his friend. And judging by the increase in shit-talk Scott seems willing to risk firing his way, he’s not the only one sensing a dynamic shift.

They’re eating breakfast together when ‘Spiderman’ first shows up on the international news. It seems poor old New York just cannot catch a break from all the wacky shit that keeps happening there, and from the look of the kid’s tech, Sam’s willing to bet that Tony has hung up his suits just to pour all his gadgetry into a shiny new protégé instead. Sam’s heart breaks for him a little bit. He probably doesn’t realise the magnitude of what he’s actually signed up for, whoever and whatever he is.

“How do you think he does it?” Scott asks through a mouthful of pancakes. “The web stuff? I mean is it manufactured or organic? Because if it’s organic then I’m a little grossed out…”

Sam shakes his head. “Man I don’t know. When we met the guy I was too busy getting my ass kicked to figure it out.”

Scott grins. “Yeah, you don’t do too well against bug-themed guys, huh?”

“Wow. We’re going there? Really? I thought we had an agreement, Lang! Besides I remember you getting toppled like a game of Jenga at that airport, you don’t get to act all smug…”

“That was a smart move on his part. The tensile strength on those threads was _insane_ …”

Scott’s eyes go a bit distant at that point, and Sam knows he’s drifted off into his head to try and work out the math. It happens sometimes – he’s learned that Scott has a tendency towards fixation when a problem comes up, although nowhere near as bad as Tony. Scott will still acknowledge the outside world with a bit of prompting, and Sam’s never seen him skip a meal in favour of coffee, so there’s one point in his ‘Functional Adult’ column at least.

He finds he actually really enjoys spending time with him. The guy is _weird_ but he’s full of cool stories, and Sam likes listening to them all, from the time his daughter Cassie adopted the mangy three-legged raccoon they found in the trashcan, to how his buddy Luis accidentally stole Lady Gaga’s purse at a fashion show because it looked like a steak. There’s a lot of love in Scott’s voice when he tells those stories, and Sam likes that. He gets the impression that Scott really likes telling them, too, as a way of making his family feel close even when they’re all so far away. It makes Sam’s near-constant homesickness swell up in his chest sometimes, but it’s a bittersweet feeling, tinged with the few scraps of optimism he has left. Scott has a contagious aura of self-confidence, much different to Tony’s brash arrogance and Steve’s wholesome good faith, and Sam finds himself slowly becoming infected with it, and the belief that they’ll figure things out eventually, somehow. It’s also possible that he’s slipping into denial as a coping mechanism, but who really knows?

 

***

 

The nightmares lessen in frequency, but their hold is still strong enough to chase away a decent amount of Sam’s sleep. He brings it up in his first session with the emotional healer – a small, owlish man called Lundi, who Sam learns is the go-to guy in Birnin Zana for all things psychological. He has a bustling practice in a quieter corner of the city, but he’s willing to make weekly house calls for Sam in the name of discretion. It’s difficult not to like the guy. When he stands up the top of his head comes just past Sam’s chin, which is adorable, and his heavily accented voice is low and soft and thoroughly infused with compassion. He also apologises for not having hands as soft as his cousin’s when they first meet, which surprises Sam into laughing. He remembers using that same trick at the VA, busting out some gentle humour to put people at ease at the start of a session. It’s effective, and he finds it easier to open up to him after that, as much as he ever does to relative strangers. He takes a deep breath, and they begin.

 

“You still feel guilt over this loss of your partner,” Lundi says, once Sam’s finished a basic outline of his issues. “The guilt has been compounded by recent events. None of this is surprising to you.”

“No. It’s not.”

“Good. Self-awareness is half the battle. Now, explain to me what is happening in your spirit when you wake up from these bad dreams. What emotions are you feeling?”

Sam shrugs. “Anger. Distress. Mostly…mostly I’m just scared.”

“Because you are reliving your greatest fear coming to pass.”

“Yes.”

“Understandable. And then afterwards, I imagine sleep is difficult because your mind is stuck running away from these memories until the morning sun banishes them for you.” Lundi leans forward with his fingers steepled under his chin in such a classic interested therapist’s pose that Sam can’t help but smile, certain that he’s doing it deliberately just to tease him.

“That would be an accurate – and surprisingly poetic – assessment, yeah…” he says.

Lundi returns his smile and yeah, he’s definitely being more playful with Sam than any other counsellor he’s known. But then suddenly he gets serious again and the smile fades out. “Well then we must practice keeping you here in the present, to stop you sliding back with the ghosts. I have some techniques I would like you to try. You may already be familiar with them. Are you willing?”

Sam is slightly thrown by the change of mood, but he finds himself agreeing without even pausing to question himself. “I…yeah I am willing...” Lundi smiles again.

“That is good. That is the other half of the battle. Now. To begin. Straighten your back and breathe as I breathe…”

And that’s how the rest of the session passes. With a surprising amount of ease…

 

After Lundi leaves, Sam goes down to the kitchen in search of food, feeling strangely light and relaxed after all that controlled breathing. He expects to find Scott at the stove, frying something delicious to share with him. What he actually finds is Scott and Clint half-wrestling over a spatula while Natasha and Wanda stare at them in disbelief, and Steve looks so absolutely-done with everything that Sam instinctively wants to give him a hug.

“Am I interrupting something?” Sam asks. Steve drops his hands from his face and sighs with relief.

“Yes. Thank god! Can you please tell these jackasses what you want to eat? They’ve been arguing for ten minutes over what to cook and I am _this_  close to borrowing a plane and dive-bombing straight back into the ice.”

Sam has no idea how to respond to that, other than by asking ‘Why???’ which he’s pretty sure is written all over his face already. Wanda takes pity on him and steps forward to lead him over to the breakfast bar.

“We all decided today would be a good day to eat together. We did not, however, decide on what to have,” she explains. Sam narrows his eyes at her.

“And why’s it up to me? Usually we settle arguments by doing whatever Natasha wants to do because she’s the scariest.”

Natasha smiles and noticeably does not disagree.

“Because this isn’t for Natasha,” Steve says. “This is about being here for you. We’ve all been busy with our own stuff, but today’s important, so we’re making an effort to show some support. If that’s okay? If you don’t want any fuss then we can just…” He tails off, glancing at the others for help, and gets nothing. In the following silence, Sam just sort of frowns while he processes what’s actually happening in his actual life right now.

“Is this…are you guys seriously doing a family dinner because I started therapy today?”

Five pairs of eyes blink back at him.

“Kinda?” says Scott after a beat. Clint yanks the spatula out of his hands while he’s distracted, and Sam can feel his insides going all hot and gooey from some intense mix of affection and embarrassment. He doesn’t want a fuss, he hasn’t really _done anything_ , but he’s so touched by the reminder that this gang of misfits give enough of a crap about him to do this that he almost wants to cry.

“Goddammit…” he mutters under his breath, and then with one decisive sniff he locks his composure back down and points at Scott. “Okay, you can make pancakes. You.” He points to Clint. “Eggs. You know how I like ‘em. Everybody else can help me find something resembling bacon and maple syrup. I want breakfast for dinner.”

“Alright.” Natasha nods and heads over to the fridge. Wanda grins at him and Steve comes over to clap him gently on the shoulder in approval. Scott and Clint start working together to share the space around the stove, argument immediately forgotten in the face of a clear plan, and Sam isn’t sure what he did to deserve these idiots, but he’s grateful anyway. He could have been stuck in exile with some worse people, that’s for damn sure.

 

*** 

 

They all spend the rest of the afternoon together, cooking, eating and laughing, and then eating again. It’s the nicest day Sam’s had in a long while, but the attention gets to be too much just after dinner. He brushes off Steve’s third offer of the sticky, stewed fruit Clint rustled up for dessert and then within the next minute he is _done_. Absolutely one-hundred per cent done, and practically shaking with the need to just get out of there and breathe on his own again. He’d forgotten how much energy it takes to just be _normal_  around people, jesus…

“I gotta turn in, guys,” he says, as he gets up to go. No one tries to stop him; they just wish him good night, and he makes a swift retreat to the blessed quiet of his room.

 

He takes his time stripping out of his clothes, brushing his teeth and slowly climbing into his stupidly luxurious bed, letting the sheets glide comfortably against his skin while the aircon keeps Wakanda’s muggy heat at bay. He isn’t that tired yet, but he figures it can’t hurt to try getting comfy until he drifts off into a (hopefully) restful slumber, and he closes his eyes with a sigh.

Sleep doesn’t come.

Sam lies there for an hour, waiting and waiting, but his brain refuses to shut down. He’s warm and comfortable, and considerably more pain-free than he has been, but for some reason he can’t make his mind relax. The quietness sinks into him and echoes round his head, bouncing off half-stirred memories and remnants of things he spoke to Dr Lundi about. Vague worries bubble up about Ross chasing them down, never seeing his family again, and of some new catastrophe happening with only Stark and the Spider-boy Wonder left to fight it off. Frustrated, he tries to even his breathing into the controlled rhythm he’d practiced earlier that day, but it’s no good. His room is too still, too lacking in anything to distract him from himself. All he has to focus on is his thoughts, and they’re getting darker by the minute.

“Dammit!” he grumbles, sitting up with a huff. He knows he has to do something, stop himself spiralling, but if he can’t settle down in the privacy of his room then he doesn’t know where he can. Except…he remembers the calming drone of the morning cicadas on the roof, and the stifling heat feeling like a physical weight blanketed over him. He remembers the sense of peace he slipped into under that canopy, and how easily it came. Well, T’Challa did say they were welcome to use the gardens, didn’t he?

Once the idea comes, it’s a matter of seconds before Sam gets up and grabs a clean shirt to pull on. He forgoes shoes and heads straight out to the elevator, keeping his steps light and quiet out of habit, trying not to wake anyone else. He only hopes T’Challa was kidding about the Dora Milaje patrolling at all times. He doesn’t fancy running into one in just a shirt and boxers.

 

The elevator takes him up to the roof and when he steps out he’s hit with the earthy, fragrant smells of the jungle on the cool night air. The stone path feels slightly clammy beneath his bare feet, and he follows it until he finds the alcove with the birds of paradise that he saw before, with the cat statue. It’s way more imposing in the moonlight, with shadows casting the illusion of a vicious scowl over its face as it towers above him, but it doesn’t strike Sam as being scary. He feels this is a figure meant to evoke a sense of protection rather than fear, and that feeling only increases when he sits down at its raised base, with his back against its feet. The bronze is still slightly warm to the touch after a long day in the sun, leaking heat almost like a living creature, and some tiny primal part of Sam is instantly soothed, feeling watched over and safe. After that, it’s easy to let his eyes fall shut and just listen to the cicadas singing. There’s a pulsing rhythm to their collective buzz, almost like a heartbeat, and the whole garden seems to throb with a rich cacophony of life. Sam sinks into it, lets it drown out all the other noise in his head, and focuses solely on what he can hear in each exact moment. He breathes in time with the jungle, and soon enough he drifts…

 

He comes back to himself with a start when he hears a voice saying his name. It’s gentle, but firm, and accompanied by a warm hand resting on his shoulder. He opens his eyes and sees T’Challa smiling down at him.

“You were sleeping,” he says, once Sam has recognised him. “It didn’t look particularly comfortable.”

Sam sits forward and, sure enough, there’s a sharp pain in his neck from where he slumped back against the statue. He stretches it out with a grimace. “Thanks.” He doesn’t know how long he was out, although judging by how dark it still is, it wasn’t very long. Which raises the question of what brought T’Challa up here in the middle of the goddamn night? “I’m guessing you had trouble sleeping as well?” he says. T’Challa’s smile turns wry.

“A good guess.” He sits down next to Sam and turns to face him, leaning back against the statue’s legs. He looks as tired as Sam feels, and slightly vulnerable in his thin sleeping clothes. The bruise from Natasha has almost faded, but is still visible, and Sam swallows down a fleeting urge to try and smooth it away with his thumb.

“I came up here to clear my head,” Sam hurriedly says, realising that he’s staring _again_. He hopes it’s too dark to make out the mortified flush on his face, but T’Challa’s eyes always have this gleam of _knowing_  about them so he can’t really tell if he’s been caught or not. He figures it’s best to assume he hasn’t. “Didn’t really expect to run into anybody.”

“Neither did I,” says T’Challa, and Sam’s stomach drops because he realises that T’Challa probably gets zero time to himself these days, and now he’s come across Sam napping in his private gardens at ungodly hours when the poor guy was probably just looking for one single moment of peace. But T’Challa is still smiling at him, all soft and fond, like this whole bizarre meeting is a pleasant surprise rather than an inconvenience. And then he says, ever so gently, “I’m glad that I did,” with all his characteristic sincerity, and there is absolutely nothing Sam can do to stop the heat that flares up all over his face at that. He ducks his head, which probably only makes things worse.

“Yeah, me too,” he mumbles, because he is. He’d gotten used to seeing T’Challa every day back in the hospital, and he’s missed talking to him. It feels worryingly nice just being near him again. “So how have you been doing?” Sam asks. He has to admit he’s been wondering, in between stories from Scott and gearing up for his first session with Lundi.

T’Challa seems a little thrown by the question, though. He doesn’t speak right away, just looks off into the trees with a frown and starts fidgeting with his ring, while the cicadas seem to grow louder in the heavy silence. “You know,” he says after a moment. “I don’t think anyone has asked me that question so directly since I came home. I think too many fear the true answer.” He turns back to Sam then, meets his eyes with fearless honesty, and Sam watches as T’Challa the King falls away to reveal the struggling, grieving son beneath. He doesn’t even think. He just reaches over and curls a hand behind T’Challa’s neck, coaxes him forward until their foreheads rest against each other. T’Challa sucks in a shaky breath and shuts his eyes, leaning into the touch, and Sam’s thumb somehow ends up gently running over the corner of his jaw. It’s an intimate gesture, way too intimate really, they haven’t even _hugged_ , but T’Challa doesn’t object. He reaches up and takes hold of Sam’s hand, but he just holds it in place and lets out a small sigh, pressing his head even closer.

“I must not appear weak,” T’Challa murmurs. “My people need me to be strong. But it was my father who showed me how to be strong.” His grip tightens on Sam’s hand, but he doesn’t pull away. “There was so much left for him to teach me…”

He opens his eyes and Sam is winded by the devastation held in them, so close to his own that they’re all he can see. His vision swims with all that desperate hurt, and he can’t think beyond how much he wants to comfort this man, although he knows how ill-equipped he is to do it.

“What do you need?” Sam asks, pulling back slightly to take in T’Challa’s whole face. He remembers that being the only thing people could say to him after Riley died that didn’t send him flying off the handle. No sympathy or platitudes, just a simple, practical question, with no painful emotional response required. He waits for patiently for the answer.

T’Challa doesn’t speak, but his eyes darken with heat and his gaze drops pointedly down to Sam’s mouth. Sam feels the hairs on the back of his neck prickling, his breath catching in anticipation, and before he’s fully aware of what’s about to happen, T’Challa has tilted his head and moved to close the gap between them.

The kiss starts off sweet, with T’Challa’s lips pressing almost shyly against Sam’s. Then Sam kisses back and quickly loses himself in the warmth and the pressure of T’Challa’s mouth sealed against his. He moves his hands to cradle T’Challa’s face, while T’Challa clings to his shoulders and pulls him closer, moaning so softly that Sam almost misses it, and it’s _perfect_ , Sam can’t believe how perfect it feels to be finally kissing this man after weeks of silent wanting, but then he feels the wetness on his palms. He tastes the sharpness of salt on his lips, and he breaks away to see that T'Challa’s crying. Fuck…

 

“Hey, hey.” He brushes a tear away with his thumb, and T’Challa shuts his eyes again, ashamed. Sam feels horrible. He should have known better, really, what is _wrong with him?_  “Hey, it’s okay. We don’t have to…I mean maybe we shouldn’t…” He takes a deep breath and pulls back from T’Challa so he can focus on finding the right words. “Look, we’re both pretty messed up right now. Probably too messed up for…this.” T’Challa opens his eyes again in time to see Sam gesturing vaguely at the air between them, and his lips twitch up at the corners slightly. He nods.

“Probably,” he mumbles, voice wobbling only once for all that he’s crying. He scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands, clearing the tears away in one swipe, and keeps his eyes fixed on the ground as he doggedly claws back his composure with each lungful of air. “Please forgive my behaviour,” he says, still not quite meeting Sam’s eyes. “I shouldn’t have imposed…”

Sam snorts. “Man, it’s not an imposition when the other guy wants it to happen.” He waits for T’Challa to look up and gives him a sly little smile, makes sure he knows he’s being serious, and delights in the tiny echo of it he gets back. “I just don’t think either of us is ready for it just yet.”

T’Challa’s eyes calm as understanding settles behind them, and he sighs. “I think you are right.” His fingers twitch where they rest next to Sam, no longer touching him but clearly still wanting to. Sam sympathises – he’s fighting his own battle against the urge to lean forward for another kiss. But it wouldn’t be right. Neither of them have their heads on straight enough to hook up now without it getting messy. Sam knows that all too well.

“I’ll be your friend,” he says. “But I can’t give you more than that.”

A soft smile blooms over T’Challa’s face. “That much is a gift in itself. And besides…” He looks up at the statue, his smile turning wicked. “We have disrespected Bastet enough tonight.”

Sam’s confused for a second before it clicks. It’s not just a cat statue they’re sitting on. He’s been sprawled beneath the likeness of one of Wakanda’s most sacred deities, casually resting his ass against her goddamn toes...

“Shit, I didn’t realise…” Sam starts trying to get up, but T’Challa lets out a quiet chuckle and tugs him back down.

“Don’t worry, she’s witnessed much worse from me before...” he says, voice furtively hushed. The twinkle has crept back in to his eyes and Sam is relieved to see he’s just being teased, not reprimanded.

“Oh yeah? Like what?” he asks, unable to stop himself. He regrets it as soon as the words come out, images of T’Challa in various scenarios of youthful indiscretion running through his mind, but T’Challa just shakes his head.

“That stays between me and Bastet…” he says, grinning all smug and knowing like an asshole. It makes Sam’s stomach do a fond little flip, and oh _crap_ , he might be in a little bit of trouble here...

 

A helpless little laugh tumbles out of Sam’s mouth and he turns away so that T’Challa can’t see whatever dumb look is plastered all over his face. It’s futile really, he can feel the back of his neck flushing and that’s damning enough, but it also keeps him from getting side-tracked by T’Challa’s face in turn. He’s trying to _get a hold of himself_  here…

“You know we can’t keep flirting like this,” he says. He feels the air shift next to him as T’Challa sits forward and sighs.

“That’s a shame. I quite enjoy it.”

Sam does look at him then, and the breath catches in his throat as T’Challa’s eyes sweep down over him, almost glittering with enticement. It really would only take the smallest of movements to just lean forward and…

“Dammit, T’Challa!” Sam pulls himself back and stands up, suppressing the nervous giggles gathering up in his chest. “Come on, man. Behave,” he mumbles, half-pleading if he’s honest. T’Challa looks completely unrepentant, like goddamn butter wouldn’t melt, and yeah, Sam is definitely in trouble with this one. He was not expecting the King of Wakanda to be a relentless tease, of all things, but he can’t really say he’s surprised. He’s been seeing more and more of T’Challa’s mischievous side, and in spite of himself, he really likes it. Seems his momma was right when she said he had a weakness for assholes with a heart of gold...

“I’m gonna head back in if you don’t stop looking at me like that,” he threatens. T’Challa’s cheeks dimple as he grins, absolutely calling Sam out, and Sam shakes his head. “Alright, fine. Good night!” He is nothing if not a man of his word, so he walks back over to the elevator and presses the call button, very deliberately not looking back. He jumps slightly when a hand catches him by the elbow – he hadn’t even heard T’Challa get up to follow him – but when he turns he sees none of the mischief or wicked temptation left. Just worry.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend,” he says. He looks so distressed that Sam can’t help but melt a little more. He finds it funny that T’Challa could think he’d been _offended_  by the flirting, considering the fact that this was him making a tactical retreat because it was proving _too effective_.

“You didn’t. I’m just human, you know? I’ve only got so much willpower, and you’re burning through my supplies pretty quick here.”

“Ah…” Now it’s T’Challa’s turn to blush, and Sam tucks that little mental picture away with a tiny thrill. “I was worried I had scared you away.”

Sam smiles. He feels a surge of protectiveness for this precious dork. “Nah, I ain’t that easy to spook.” He looks down at where T’Challa’s fingers are still curled over his arm, and reaches up to put his own hand on top, giving them a gentle squeeze. “I said I’d be your friend. I meant that. If you want to talk, I’m here.”

T’Challa lets out a rush of breath and meets Sam’s eyes with an open, lingering gaze. “I would like that,” he says. “You are easy to talk to. Too easy, perhaps…” He smiles, and Sam knows exactly what he means. He’d thought the exact same thing in the hospital, after all. “But it is late now. Perhaps I should let you go, before I start flirting again…” T’Challa’s hand slips out from underneath Sam’s, releasing his arm, but he doesn’t move away. It’s up to Sam to step back, out from the magnetic pull between them, until the elevator doors open and he can step inside.

“You know where to find me,” he says, pressing the button for his floor.

T’Challa nods. “I do. Thank you, Sam.” His eyes are warm and fond. Sam watches them disappear behind the closing doors with an ache in his chest that he very pointedly ignores, and then the elevator starts to take him down.

 

*** 

 

Sam slumps back against the wall with a groan. He is super aware of every place on his body where T’Challa touched him, skin thrumming with the memory. It’s a good feeling, the most alive he’s felt since…well since Rhodey went down, and he buries his face in his hands and just _breathes_  for a moment, trying to process it. Before he knows it he’s absently touching his mouth, replaying the kiss in his head like a lovesick fool.

Of course, that’s when the doors open again on the guest quarters floor, and Wanda is walking down the hallway just in time to catch him in the act. He yanks his hand away and tries to walk out of the elevator with as much dignity as he can muster, praying to all things good and holy that she didn’t pick up on any of the pictures he just had running through his head.

Wanda smirks at him. “Sweet dreams…” she says as she walks past towards the elevator, probably on her way to the kitchen. Her voice lilts obnoxiously on the ‘dreams’ and Sam sighs. Yeah, she totally saw everything…

“Goddamn psychic teenagers…” he mutters under his breath. He can hear the faint echo of Wanda’s cackle drifting through the elevator doors, and as much as he loves to hear her laughing, he’s still mortified. Aw, hell, she is _not_  going to let that drop…

 

Still, the upside is that when he does eventually fall asleep, instead of dreaming of Riley or Rhodey, or that asshole Ross, he dreams of T’Challa smiling at him underneath the trees and singing cicadas. It's a vast improvement, and he actually sleeps through the night for once. Can't really complain about that...


	5. Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott inflicts his moves upon the Wakandan people while Sam gets lucky. And then not so lucky.

Sam is woken early the next morning by the sound of horns blowing. Three deep, long notes that feel like they’re coming from within the building itself, vibrating through the walls and the floor, startling him out of sleep, out of bed and then out of his room.

“What in the hell???” Sam growls as he stumbles out into the hallway. He comes across the others leaving their rooms, looking just as confused and sleep-ruffled as him. Except Natasha, who looks alert and ready to go, as always.

“Was that a siren???” says Clint. “Are we under attack?”

Wanda hugs her arms around herself and closes her eyes. She tips her head slightly to one side, and Sam realises she’s trying to reach out and ‘listen’ to the rest of the palace. After a moment, she frowns and shakes her head. “Not an alarm. Not enough panic.”

Sam relaxes a tiny bit. “Then what is going on?” he asks.

“I don’t know. There’s too much…” Wanda waves her hand around her head. “There’s just too much. I can’t get a clear picture.”

At this point Okoye emerges from the elevator, dressed in a simple red uniform and clearly as thrilled as ever to see them. “Good day,” she says. “I am here to inform you that the mourning period for our former king T’Chaka has ended. Now begins our national celebration of him. You are welcome to join the festivities, if you wish, but be aware that our priority will be protecting our king T’Challa. Your safety amongst the people will be considered second. If at all.” She finishes with a tight flash of a smile, and then she turns around to leave again.

“Wait!” Sam calls. Okoye arches an eyebrow over her shoulder at him, but she stops. “Wait, is that what that noise was about?”

She nods. “Ceremonial horns, announcing the celebrations, and calling for our ancestors to welcome the spirit of T’Chaka to them.”

The realisation hits Sam then. “So this past week…this is what T’Challa’s been busy preparing for?” It’s a rhetorical question, but Okoye nods again in answer anyway, and Sam kind of wants the ground to swallow him up a little bit. Christ, no wonder T’Challa had been struggling so much last night. Thank god he managed to get a hold of himself before he’d really taken advantage of the poor guy…

Okoye snorts, clearly misinterpreting whatever constipated face Sam is making. “It is customary to pay tribute in this way,” she says, more than a little defensively. “In our culture, death is loss, but it is also the path to rebirth. We do not treat it as taboo, unlike some.”

“Whoah, I wasn’t disapproving!” Sam insists. “Sorry, I was just thinking…that it explains a lot. About how he’s been acting…lately…” He trails off on the last word as Okoye suddenly spins back around to face him again, her nostrils flaring. “You do not know him,” she hisses. “He is not your king. You have _no place_  making comments on how he behaves.”

Sam backs up a step on instinct, feeling a strong urge to get his arms up into a defensive position, but Okoye doesn’t advance any further. She just turns back towards the elevator and stalks off before he can even draw the breath to start apologising.

Wanda leans in to him once the elevator has moved off, sliding a slender arm though the crook of his elbow and scowling at the closed doors. “I would be wary of her, if I were you,” she says.

Sam lets out a long, measured breath. “Trust me, I already am…” He gives Wanda a quick reassuring smile, and she squeezes his arm gently before heading off to the kitchen. Everyone else follows her except for Scott and Steve, who hang back and hover over him with all the subtlety of a rampaging Hulk. Sam rolls his eyes.

“Do not start babysitting me.”

“Hadn’t even crossed my mind,” Steve says. “I was just wondering if you wanted to go for a run.” He nudges Scott in the ribs (nearly sending him halfway across the room). “Scott’s coming too.”

The glare Scott shoots Steve’s way indicates that this is the first he’s heard of it, but he turns to Sam with a resigned smile and shrugs. “I suppose I _am_  behind on my fitness…”

Sam sighs. “Fine. But if I end up in the hospital again I’m gonna be pissed…”

Steve just laughs and claps him on the shoulder. Asshole…

 

The run turns out to be really nice. Steve makes the gallant gesture of slowing his damn pace down to a mere human level, occasionally overshooting but letting Sam and Scott catch him up by jogging backwards or on the spot for a while. Scott struggles slightly with the heat, and Sam sympathises with that, but they manage a few laps together before stopping to catch their breath (thankfully a little ways past the alcove with the Bastet statue.)

“This was so fun,” Scott gasps out between breathes as they settle on the ground. “Thanks for inviting me guys, I really should work out to the point of death more often.” Steve just laughs, and Sam reaches over to ruffle Scott’s hair, although he ends up just giving him a cowlick due to the sweat, which is gross.

“No whining, Tic-Tac,” he says. “I did this with three broken ribs, you can’t complain.”

Scott makes a face at him and tries to knock him over, but Sam’s deadweight against Steve’s side so it turns into a pathetic nudge. Sam retaliates by trying to push Scott over with his foot even though he’s too tired to put enough strength into it and ends up giving Scott’s thigh a weak little tap. Steve sighs dramatically.

“I miss working out with Thor…” he says, overly wistful. Sam reaches back to swat at his head while Scott just snorts and collapses onto the floor. A quiet feeling of peace settles over them for a moment, with Steve’s snickering the only sound amongst the cicadas and morning birdsong. Unfortunately, that’s when a deafening crash of drums from the ground below gives Sam a way bigger jump-scare than necessary.

“Whoa, buddy,” Steve puts a hand on his arm, stopping him from getting entirely onto his feet. “It’s just music, you’re good.” And as if to prove his point, the drums break out into structured rhythm just as some horns join in and give them melody. Sam shakes his head, annoyed with himself, because he knew, okay, he /knew that/ but it didn’t stop the panic, didn’t stop the split second of raw, all-consuming _fear_  and he is so, so tired of this bullshit now. He used to be pretty much unflappable, and now he can’t handle a damn parade? Nuh-uh. Not acceptable.

“Alright,” he says, gently pulling away from Steve and standing up to stretch the tension out. “Who feels like going down there and paying our respects?”

Steve frowns. “You sure that’s a good idea? I got the impression that Okoye wasn’t too keen.”

“Okoye doesn’t seem too keen on much of anything. Look, I haven’t left this palace in over a month. I’m going down. Are you coming with?” Sam stares down at Steve for a moment, waiting for further protest. It feels a little weird being the one trying to convince Steve to do something reckless for once, but his mind is made up. This is happening. No more hiding.

In the end Steve lets out a small sigh, although he’s got his wry little half-smile going so Sam already knows he’s on board before he reaches out for a hand up.

“We’re bringing Nat,” is all Steve says as he walks past him towards the doors. Sam can’t really argue with that. There’s no one on this planet who makes him feel safer than Nat – even though she terrifies him at the same time.

“Great, I love a party!” Scott’s says, as he very clearly does not move from the ground. Sam snorts and hauls him upright, and they head back inside to find themselves a Russian spy.

*

The streets are a riot of noise and movement. As soon as they step outside they’re enveloped by a passing crowd, and Nat immediately slips a gentle arm through one of Sam’s, while Steve takes up a solid position behind them both. Scott shifts ahead of them, weaving through gaps and leading the way, and Sam lets out a breathe he didn’t realise he was holding.

“Do you think we’ll find some food out here?” Steve asks. He has to lean in close for Sam to hear him over the drums.

“I’ve got eyes on a couple stalls, ten o’clock,” Nat answers. Her gaze is hidden behind her sunglasses, and with her hair loosely tied back she looks every inch the casual tourist but Sam knows she’s scanning every face and every shadow around them. “Flatbreads. Meats. Some kind of alcohol?”

“Checking it out!” Scott makes an immediate beeline for that direction, and Sam briefly wonders if he has any Wakandan money on him to buy anything. Then another wave of people surges around them and Sam’s next thought is about how they’re going to avoid losing each other in the crowd. The answer to that question, unfortunately, is that they don’t.

 

It takes under fifteen minutes for Sam to get lost. They start off moving along with the flow of people dancing through the city, trying to be as inoffensive as possible considering how very obviously they stick out. Even Natasha can’t blend in with the sea of colourful black faces, and if Sam wasn’t feeling so tense he might have taken the time to appreciate being the least conspicuous for once. As it is, his energy gets diverted to making sure he doesn’t twitch every time someone moves a little too close, a little too quickly. The celebrations are bright and jubilant and /loud/ and Sam almost gives in to the urge to panic and flee back inside to where it’s quiet and safe. Then someone makes eye contact with him – a young woman with bright amber streaks woven through her braids and white dots painted along the contours of her face. She is holding a small container in one hand while the other has thick white pigment smeared over her fingers, and she gives Sam a considering look as she finishes painting the face of the man dancing next to her. Then she moves towards him.

“For new beginnings?” she asks, in barely accented English, holding her paint-stained fingers up in offering. She looks at all four of them, smiling the unmistakably open smile of the slightly inebriated, and Sam breathes in, then out, and nods. He leans forward, lets her dab her fingers methodically over his face, and laughs along with her when she adds one to his nose with a flourish. “Much better!” she declares, and then moves fearlessly on to Nat. Nat allows it with an air of thorough bemusement, and that’s when the woman’s friends start gravitating over to join them.

“Outsiders!” one of them shouts. “Dance with us, outsiders!” He is already reaching out and pulling Sam towards their group, and despite some reflexive resistance, Sam finds himself being encouraged to copy their low, swinging hip movements while the paint is still drying on his face. He quickly searches for the others, finds that Steve and Nat are being painted within easy reach and Scott is skipping that part to come over and join in with the dancing (and being pretty clumsy at it too). The man who still has hold of Sam’s hand laughs and tugs until Sam turns back to face him again.

“You look so scared! Relax! We’re not going to bite...” He tugs again, bringing Sam’s arm closer to the ground so he has to crouch to keep his balance, and then it’s easier for him to keep dancing than it is for him to stand still – although the dancing itself takes a lot of work to get anywhere close to right. The guy grins at Sam when he gets into it though, so he figures his efforts are good enough, for an ‘outsider’. He grins back, feeling the dry paint flaking on his skin and smelling the heady mix of alcohol, spices and something like fireworks in the air. It all soaks in, bit by bit, until Sam is simply enjoying himself instead of just trying his best not to freak. For a moment it’s like being at home again, on a regular night out with friends, and without thinking he starts dancing a little closer to the grinning stranger, suddenly dancing _with him_  instead of with him. He panics as soon as he realises what he’s doing, immediately backing up and trying to pretend like he lost his balance, but the grip on his hand doesn’t waver and he finds himself being pulled back in again.

The stranger leans in to murmur in his ear, just about audible above the drums. “I told you, outsider. We don’t bite.” He’s still grinning, warm and inviting, slowly winding an arm around Sam’s waist with a measured gentleness, clearly trying not to spook him. The penny finally drops then, and Sam has to fight down a powerful urge to giggle. He knows he’s blushing already, damn it, but that’s mostly embarrassment at his own lack of smoothness. He’s sure he used to be way better at this, before Captain America swept into his life and he became a permanent (and literal) wingman. Still, whatever game he has left seems to be working wonders on the men of Wakanda for some reason, and Sam has never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth. After all, what’s one dance with a handsome stranger? He did come out to have fun, after all.

He relaxes back into the dance, swaying even further into the stranger’s space and draping his free arm over his shoulder, bringing them close enough to feel each other’s breathing, close enough to count eyelashes if they wanted.

“I’m Sam,” he says, as confidently as he knows how.

The stranger laughs softly. “I know. Sam Wilson. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Falcon. You’re my favourite Avenger.” He says it with a sweet sincerity that hits Sam right in the chest, charming him right past his gut reaction of bashfulness. “My name is Teshi.”  

 

They dance for what seems like hours. Sam spares the others an occasional glance, just to make sure, but if Teshi minds then he doesn’t show it. Natasha’s attempts to join the dancing are a lot better than Scott’s, and Steve keeps getting various drinks and food handed to him to try, which he does with characteristic politeness. He catches Sam’s eyes every time he looks over and smirks, which Sam can’t help but shake his head at. He focuses back on Teshi, on the warmth of him, the easy way he rests his hands on Sam’s hips and the joyful sheen of his eyes. There’s something settling about him, something genuine and tender. Sam feels good in his arms, swaying with the rhythmic pounding of the drums and surrounded by the laughter of his friends, and pretty soon, almost inevitably, they’re making out.

It gets a bit hazy for Sam after that. Looking back, he remembers hearing wolf whistles and cheers, and a brief loss of contact while Teshi cusses his friends out in Wakandan and then steals him away to a more private spot. He doesn’t even think about leaving Steve and the others, he just doesn’t want the kissing to stop, he doesn’t want to lose how good it feels, not yet, but then thankfully there’s an alley to duck into and Teshi’s mouth is back on him, all lazy heat and soft pressure while Sam leans back against a wall and sighs. There’s no urgency, no sense of pressure for more, and Sam feels like he could just stay there all day, doing just this for as long as Teshi’s willing. Damn, but these Wakandan boys know how to _kiss_...

Unfortunately, Sam’s luck is nowhere near that good. He becomes dimly aware that the music has quieted at some point, that the noise of the crowd is a little more distant than it was, and suddenly he tenses as he catches on to another presence in the alley with them.

“What’s wrong?” Teshi asks as he pulls away, eyes not quite following as Sam snaps his head around to see who’s there. It’s a Wakandan man, about the same build as Steve, with two others of roughly the same size standing behind him on either side. They’re all dressed in what strikes Sam as a warrior’s garb, with their limbs free and weapons on display, and they all have a look on their face that Sam recognises all too well. His stomach sinks, and he moves to put Teshi behind him while he runs a few scenarios through his head. None of them ends with him coming out injury free.

“Teshi,” the middle one says, and Sam can’t help but look back at Teshi in panic. He knows these guys? Was this a trap all along? Is he gonna have to fight Teshi too? But Teshi looks just as terrified as Sam.

“Sefu.” His voice comes out wavering, with none of the joy from before left in it. “You’ve made new friends.”

Sefu sneers. “I’ve found _brothers_. And you still defile yourself in the same way. With this _trespasser_. Today, when we are supposed to be honouring our king.”

“Disgusting,” the guy on his left chimes in. “And this deviant is known to you?”

“Not anymore.”

Sam’s head is still swimming with questions when Sefu throws his first punch. He easily dodges it, but the other two are already unsheathing their weapons and advancing on Teshi. They’re yielding some kind of extendable truncheon, humming with an electrical charge that Sam already knows is going to _hurt_. He quickly jabs an open palm to Sefu’s throat and smashes his knee into his face and then turns to rush the nearest lackey before he can get a good swing at Teshi. Teshi isn’t exactly helpless, holding off the other guy with a good grip and a swift kick to the nuts, but he’s clearly not a trained fighter, and these guys are /strong/. Sam’s tackle has both him and his opponent on the ground and he scrambles to get a few hits in and hopefully break the guy’s nose before he’s up again. That plan goes south pretty quickly, as Sam is immediately bucked off and sent sprawling to the side, and he remembers that he’s still down a lot of weight from the spell in hospital. There’s a horrible crack and a cry of pain from Teshi as the first truncheon blow lands, and then searing pain across Sam’s back as he gets his own dose.

They are not going to win this fight.

They might not even survive it.

 _Shit._  

Then, the unthinkable happens. There’s another crack and cry of pain, and a body drops to the floor next to Sam. He expects it to be Teshi. It is not Teshi.

“The rest of you drop your weapons now or face even worse.” A woman’s voice comes from behind where Sefu was, and Sefu himself lets out a garbled groan of pain from the floor. Sam can see him clutching his stomach and his ear, and the ear is steadily leaking blood. Standing over him is a woman Sam does not recognise, although she holds herself in a way that reminds him starkly of Nat, and in her hand is Sefu’s own blood-stained weapon. Her clothes are civilian, her hair is cropped close to her head, and her pretty face is set with a cold and confident fury that makes Sam want to do as she says even though he isn’t even armed.

“This doesn’t concern you, woman,” the guy standing over Teshi growls. He makes to advance towards her, but the guy Sam tackled is back on his feet and grabbing his arm.

“Wardog.” Sam thinks he hears him mutter, and then his friend’s face drops, and begrudgingly so does his weapon. They both start backing out of the alley, stopping to collect Sefu and carry him out, spitting at Sam’s feet as they go. The woman watches without flinching, and only when they are gone from sight does she move over to kneel by Teshi. Sam joins her as best as his back allows, and can’t help but hiss at the damage that’s been done.

The asshole cracked him right across the temple, leaving a bloody gash that stops just short of his left eye. It’s swollen shut already, and his breathing is laboured, but he still reaches out to grip Sam’s hand when he gets near.

“Sorry,” he croaks. “Sefu was my neighbour. I haven’t seen him in years, we took different paths...”

“Hey now,” Sam interrupts. “You don’t need to explain. Let’s just get you some help, okay?” He turns to the woman, who seems to be looking at Teshi’s injury with an air of calculation. “Thanks for coming to the rescue by the way.”

She nods, not looking away from Teshi. “It’s what I do. Although not usually here, in my own country.” A frown clouds over her face, and she gets to her feet. “There is a hospital not far from here. I will go get a doctor, it’s best not to move him just yet. Keep him calm till I get back.”

Sam has no intention of doing anything else, but he doesn’t say that. He just squeezes Teshi’s hand and watches her leave, praying to god she comes back with help. His back is absolutely fucked, and he doesn’t have a cellphone to call anyone with. Hasn’t had one since before The Raft. He resolves to do something about that as soon as this mess is done with.

Before long Nakia returns with a man in a white lab coat and a floating stretcher that at any other time would have seemed really cool. Together they get Teshi onto it, and then the doctor runs some kind of Star Trek-looking scanner thing over Sam’s back. It immediately feels better. Not healed, but he can stand up straight and move about without cursing.

“We’ll fix it up properly on the ward,” the doctor says. “Your friend is higher priority.”

Sam is in total agreement, and he follows as they hurry out onto the street. It’s quiet, littered with evidence of the earlier festivities that already feel like a lifetime ago, and as they walk along Sam keeps a lookout for any hidden surprises waiting in the shadows. Nakia, to his relief, is doing the same, although without his edge of panic. He kinda likes her.

 

At the hospital, Teshi is whisked off to one room while Sam is directed to another and told to lie down on his front underneath a giant lamp that turns out is a bigger version of the scanner thing. He has to stay there for half an hour – apparently the damage is mostly superficial, with no broken vertebrae and just some severe bruising and lacerations to fix up. Nakia turns up once he’s done with news about Teshi.

“They have him sedated. He’ll sleep for a day while they fix the bleeding on his brain, and his face shouldn’t even scar.”

“Wow. Thank you. Wakandan medicine is really something _else_.” Sam tries not to sound annoyed when he says that, but it’s difficult. He feels like he’s witnessing miracle after miracle in this country, seeing things that would revolutionise the society he comes from, change thousands of lives for the better. He thinks especially of the vets he’s known and the painful injuries they live with every damn day. How much easier would they have had it with access to this technology?

“Not all of us are so intent on keeping it to ourselves,” Nakia tells him, her own annoyance clear to see. She sighs, then stands up and gestures for Sam to follow. “Come on. There’s nothing for you to do here, not till tomorrow. I’ll escort you back to the palace. People will be worried.”

“You figured out who I am?” Sam hasn’t had a chance to introduce himself yet, and the wheels of paranoia kick back into motion as he realises he doesn’t actually know who this woman is or what she wants from him. She rolls her eyes.

“It is not hard to figure out. We don’t have many tourists here. Now either follow me or flee, but hurry up about it.”

Sam thinks about it, but after today there’s absolutely no fight left in him. Definitely not enough to take on this woman. Besides, there’s something in his gut telling him he can trust her. So he follows.

  
*

  
Sam expects Nakia to just walk him up to the palace entrance, but to his surprise she gets waved in right alongside him by the Dora Milaje, clearly known to them and apparently more than welcome. Once inside, she leads him through the entrance hall and towards a particular heavily guarded elevator with a confidence that tells him she has been here many times before. Okoye is there, and while Sam gets his usual greeting of open hostile suspicion, Nakia gets a bright, honest smile.

“Good to see you again. It’s been too long.”

“I’m glad to be home,” Nakia says, stepping into the elevator that Okoye has opened for them with a code.

“Stay a little longer this time!” Okoye shouts through the closing doors. Sam is just...amazed by the whole exchange.

“Who are you? Seriously?” he asks, as the elevator takes them up.

“No one important,” is Nakia’s response, although she’s smiling, so Sam takes that to be a lie. His curiosity builds to maddening levels, but he knows he’s getting nothing more than she wants to share.

Soon enough the doors are opening to reveal a grandly furnished parlour room with a panther statue as its focal point at the back, and a window overlooking the city on the right. To the left is a fireplace, and sitting by it is a young woman furiously working on a tablet, an older woman with gorgeous silver dreadlocks left loose down her back, and between them, playing nervously with his father’s ring, is T’Challa.

“Your Highnesses,” Nakia says, crossing her arms over her chest and bowing her head. “Please accept my condolences for your unimaginable loss.”

T’Challa’s head snaps up and his eyes go wide as he sees Nakia, but it’s the young woman who jumps up and rushes over to hug her.

“You came back home! Oh it’s good to see you!”

Nakia laughs and hugs her back just as hard. “Of course I came back. How could I not after hearing about your father?” She lets go and looks at T’Challa, who seems frozen in place. “I am so sorry. How have you been?”

T’Challa seems to shake himself out of whatever trance he was in and gets up to greet Nakia as well. “I have known better days, but I am grateful for your return. You did miss my coronation though...” His voice is teasing, but he hesitates, stops about a foot away from Nakia, and she doesn’t move to close the gap, and suddenly it’s awkward. He clears his throat and looks away, and suddenly realises in all the buzz over Nakia that Sam is also standing there.

“Hey,” Sam says, with no idea what else to do. He knows he’s intruding, and he wishes Nakia had just left him to find his own way back.

“What happened to you?” T’Challa asks, stepping towards him. “I only just heard that your friends had lost you. I was worried.”

Shame immediately flushes through every part of Sam. Here’s this guy, with more than enough problems of his own, and Sam is just adding to the grief by being _stupid_.

“I didn’t want that. I’m so sorry. I’m fine, please, you get back to your family.” He turns around to go back to the elevator, then realises that’s probably rude, like don’t you have to wait to be dismissed by royalty, or something? Should he ask for permission? Would _that_  be rude?

“Please, stay.” T’Challa’s hand finds his shoulder and turns him slowly back around. “Let me introduce you?”

Sam can feel Nakia’s eyes on him, and there’s some weird tension in the room that Sam does not want to get mixed up in, but T’Challa is asking so gently it’s impossible to refuse. He nods, and T’Challa beams, leads him over to the woman still sat by the fireplace.

“This is my mother, Ramonda, Queen Mother of Wakanda. Mother, this is Sam Wilson.”

Ramonda rises gracefully and holds out a delicate hand. “My son speaks highly of you, Mr Wilson. It would seem you’ve been a good friend to him in the short time you’ve been acquainted...certain events in Germany notwithstanding.”

Sam takes her hand respectfully, and if he doesn’t feel the judgement in her words then he certainly does in her strong, unyielding grip. He can’t really blame her though. Judgement is a mother’s prerogative, as his own is fond of telling him. “It’s a pleasure, your highness.”

Next T’Challa leads him back over to where Nakia and the young woman are standing. “This brat is my sister Shuri,” he says. “Believe nothing she says.”

Shuri makes a noise of protest. “Excuse me, this ‘brat’ is still working on fixing your suit for you, ungrateful dunghead!” She looks ready to say a lot more, but instantly quiets at the sound of Ramonda tutting, and Sam’s homesickness kicks back in so hard at the familiar family dynamic that he feels his throat tighten a little. Thankfully Shuri distracts him by shoving her hand under his face, waiting for him to shake it. “Pleased to meet you Sam. Stop by my lab sometime, I have questions about those wings you had.”

Sam shakes her hand, laughing a little. “Sure thing. Although your brother could probably tell you I don’t know that much about them.” Shuri shrugs dismissively, an ‘eh, we’ll see’, and then T’Challa gestures to Nakia.

“It seems you two have already met?”

Nakia regards Sam with her hands on her hips, apparently assessing him in a fresh light. Sam still has no idea what to make of her, but he’s worried about what she makes of him.

“There was a small band of thugs who fancied themselves Junbari.” Nakia speaks to T’Challa but keeps her eyes on Sam. “I don’t think they actually were. Probably just some backwards thinking idiots rebelling against their parents. M’Baku would have eaten them alive. But they decided your guest here would make good sport. We taught them better.” She smiles kindly at Sam, whose head is spinning at how skilfully she left out every problematic detail while still telling most of the story, and then her arm is threading through his like they’re old friends, and she’s turning to address the rest of the room. “We’ll leave you in peace now. Sam’s friends are waiting for him. I just wanted you to know he was safe. I’ll come back tomorrow, if that’s okay?”

T’Challa seems taken aback. “Of course it’s okay, but Nakia, you know you don’t have to go?”

“I know.” Nakia’s voice is soft even as she tugs Sam back to the elevator with her. They step inside, and as soon as the doors close, she takes her arm back and faces him directly.

“He likes you. That much is obvious. So know that I did not mention Teshi or how badly you were hurt only to protect _him_. And know that if you mess with his heart anymore than you already have, I will tear you limb from limb. Understood?”

Sam blinks. “Understood.” They stay in tense silence for a few more seconds as Sam pieces together the warm family welcome and the weird tension between Nakia and T’Challa, and suddenly it all makes sense. “So you’re his ex, then?”

Nakia’s nostrils flare. “That’s none of your concern.” He thinks for a second she’s gonna hit him, but then the elevator comes to a stop and she storms out the barely opened doors, leaving him standing there with a confused looking Okoye watching. She seems utterly unsurprised that he’s caused more upset.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m an asshole,” he says. She raises an eyebrow but says nothing more. It’s seems they’re in agreement on the subject. Common ground for once. That’s nice...

  
*

  
Sam has barely even stepped out into the guest quarters hallway when Steve appears at the other end, arms folded, eyebrows down, full frown activated. Sam has never been on the receiving end of a disappointed Captain America before and he does not like it one bit.

“I know man, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just disappeared like that.”

Steve shakes his head. “You’re a grown man, Sam. You can do what you want. But we had no idea where you went. Anything could have happened.”

Sam nods, eyes falling to the floor. He can’t helping thinking about Teshi’s bloodied face and the brief moment of certainty he’d had that he was going to die in that stupid alley. He wants to smack himself upside the head a thousand times over and then crawl into bed and never get back out again.

“Hey.” Steve’s arms drop down to his side and he walks over to Sam, suddenly full of concern. “What did happen?”

Sam thinks about lying, pretending like he just went and got laid and then Steve can just be angry with him instead of worried, but lying to Steve is never really an option. He takes a deep breath. “Got jumped by some homophobic assholes. Couldn’t fight ‘em off.” He stops to compose himself for a moment, Teshi’s cries of pain still ringing in his ears. He can see Steve looking him up and down, scanning for injuries, and he feels like a tool standing there with not even a bruise left on him. He carries on. “Teshi got the worst of it. He’s still in hospital now. But our asses were saved by this woman called Nakia. I don’t even know what she was doing there, but she gave those bastards a taste of their own medicine. Got us some first class medical attention, too, man you should see the equipment they have in these Wakandan hospitals...”

“How bad?” Steve interrupts bluntly, but with his usual gentleness, scuppering Sam’s attempts at smoothing over the bumps in his story. He sighs.

“Kinda bad. They had weapons. Tore up my whole back, but it was just a flesh wound. All gone now. Teshi got cracked across the skull, but apparently he’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

“And Teshi’s the guy you were making out with.”

“Teshi is the guy I was making out with, yes.”

Steve’s face is stormy, like it was when Sam told him about Ross, and Sam doesn’t know what exactly it is he’s thinking but he knows he wants him to stop.

“I really am sorry for ghosting you guys like that,” he says. “Especially after dragging you all out there in the first place. I didn’t mean to, I just...”

“Got caught up in the moment?” Steve’s smirking a little now, still a little worry left in his eyes, but he’s definitely smirking, the asshole.

“Yeah, I got ‘caught up in the moment’.”

Steve nods. “It’s fine. The whole point was for you to have fun. I just hate that we weren’t there to help when something bad happened. Are you okay?”

Sam has to think about it. He’s tired, he’s shaken, and he’s absolutely racked with guilt. He’s also pretty certain the scary woman who saved his life thinks he’s cheating on her ex-boyfriend. Not ideal. “I think I need to go get some sleep,” is what he ends up answering with. Steve doesn’t press him any further, just pulls him in for a quick hug and then sends him on his way.

Sam doesn’t deserve him. At all.

  
*

  
Sam gets up early the next morning to venture out and see how Teshi is. Although given how little he slept thanks to the nightmares coming back in full force, it’s less a case of getting up early and more like lying there, waiting until it’s an acceptable enough hour to go get breakfast instead of a midnight snack. He only hopes he looks better than he feels.

When he gets down to the ground floor of the palace, he’s surprised to find the Dora Milaje on duty stops him from leaving.

“Not without an escort,” she says. “You attract too much trouble.”

Sam tries to process this. “King’s orders?”

She smiles a little too wide. “General Okoye’s.”

Ah. Not entirely unsurprising. Nakia no doubt told her all the things she avoided telling T’Challa, so that’s Sam officially on her shitlist for damn sure this time. He scratches his jaw and looks around. “How do I go about getting an escort, then?” It’s still too early for most people to be up, and it’s literally just guards and him on the floor. He really doesn’t want to have to drag someone out of bed for this, but he will, if needs be.

“I advise asking nicely,” the Dora Milaje says. She glances down at her palm and the holographic interface that appears above it. “We change guard in five minutes. State your business and I may offer my help.”

Again, Sam is caught off guard, but he recovers himself. “Oh, uh...my friend got hurt yesterday, I wanna go check on him in hospital. I’m told he should be awake today.”

“Visiting hours will be a way off yet,” the woman points out. Sam had not thought of that. He’d been too muddled with sleeplessness and worry. He now feels like a total fucking idiot.

“My bad,” he mumbles, already backing away to go back upstairs, but the Dora Milaje tells him to wait.

“I will take you,” she says. “They’ll let you in if I ask them to. Although, I must warn you. They may try and admit you as a patient, looking like that.” Her voice is serious as she says it, no insult or teasing meant, just stating facts. Sam blinks. Then he laughs.

“Wow. Thank you. Okay, consider me warned.” He scrubs a hand over his face, as if that will do anything to help matters, and can’t help but smile at the woman still standing straight as an arrow even as she rips his ego to shreds. “What’s your name, anyway?” he asks.

“Ayo,” she says. Then the corner of her mouth quirks up slightly. “We would have met earlier, you know. If you’d signed The Accords. I was T’Challa’s bodyguard at the summit.”

A vague recollection of some anecdote floats to the forefront of Sam’s memory. “You’re the one who squared up to Nat in the parking lot?” He tries to keep the audible admiration in his voice to a minimum, but judging by the amused expression blooming on Ayo’s face, more than enough has bled through.

“She’s a brave woman. With a fierce reputation. I would very much like to spar with her one day.”

Sam can tell she means it too, with an honest-to-god wistful gleam in her eye. And it’s at that moment that he decides, based on substantial evidence thus far, that Wakandan women are clearly all insane and not to be messed with.

 

Once her relief arrives, Ayo goes outside and hails them what Sam assumes to be a cab. It’s driverless. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised.

They glide through the city as it slowly starts to wake up, one of the few vehicles actually out and about so early. Sam tries to get the measure of his new companion, but he can’t pick up on much beyond the steely, calm confidence that he’s seen in all the Dora Milaje. Everything about her screams ‘I will snap you like a twig’ and so naturally, Sam just wants to ask her a load of annoying questions.

“How long you been doing this job, then?”

“Since I was eighteen years old.”

“How’d you become a Dora Milaje?”

“I was selected. Each tribe sends their strongest women, and if they complete the training then they become Dora Milaje.”

“Why is it just women?”

Ayo snorts. “Why shouldn’t it be women?” She stops looking out the window and stares directly at Sam, challenging him, and he smiles.

“Ma’am, some of the scariest fighters I have ever met have been women. Nat kicks my ass without even breaking a sweat. I’m just saying the whole ‘female only’ thing seems a bit limiting. Was wondering if there was a reason.”

Ayo softens slightly, and quickly turns back to the window. Sam is very interested to note a hint of bashfulness in the way she brings a hand up to her face and rests her mouth on her knuckles. He sits back and waits for what she says next. There is a significant pause before the hand is lowered again, though she doesn’t stop looking out the window. “Traditionally they were wives for the King,” she says. “Though that hasn’t been the case for many, many years. But it was a good way of guaranteeing loyalty from all the tribes.”

Sam has no response to that revelation, other than his mouth hanging open as his brain scrabbles about for some kind of coherent reaction. All it can grasp is the thought of T’Challa and Okoye being married and that...that kind of makes him want to scream in something like hysteria. Luckily they arrive at the hospital before he has a chance to actually do that.

 

True to her word, Ayo’s authority gets Sam waved through onto the ward with little resistance. A nurse directs them to the right room and Ayo strides down the corridors right alongside Sam, clearly intent on fulfilling her escorting duties as thoroughly as possible. He hopes she’ll afford him a little privacy once they get there, but he’s not holding his breath.

What Sam does not expect to find when they arrive at the room, is Nakia standing outside the door. Yet there she is. She looks up at the sound of their approaching footsteps, gives Ayo some kind of knowing smile and a nod, and raises an eyebrow at Sam.

“You rise early,” she says, voice quiet and low.

“Yeah, well, I was in the army. They kind of train that shit into you.” Sam ignores Nakia scoffing at him and leans up against the wall, arms folded. “What about you? Why are you here at the ass crack of dawn?”

“I wanted to see how Teshi was doing, same as you. I worried he might be here alone. Although I didn’t need to, it turns out.” Nakia points through the window and Sam looks in to see Teshi, sleeping peacefully in bed, along with three other people curled up in chairs or on the floor, using jackets as blankets or pillows and all most certainly destined for some aching necks when they wake up. He recognises them – they’re Teshi’s friends from the celebrations yesterday. The woman who painted Sam’s face and another couple of guys Sam remembers seeing dancing with them. They still have paint smeared on them, obviously came straight from the party as soon as they heard. The sight warms Sam’s heart a little.

“How long have they been here, do you know?”

Nakia shakes her head. “Not really. But the hospital staff would have checked his records for emergency contacts and notified them as a courtesy. As far as I can gather, these are the people he lives with. They are all artists.”

Behind them, Ayo makes a dismissive noise. “They definitely look like artists.”

Sam doesn’t really know what to do now. He’d been expecting to turn up and find Teshi alone in the hospital room, with only the occasional nurse for company. No idea why, really, although it might have something to do with the fact that all he really knows about the guy is his first name and how good he is at kissing. He hadn’t really prepared in his head for the eventuality that he’d be intruding, which is stupid, now he thinks about it.

“Come on.” Nakia puts a hand on his shoulder. “He doesn’t need us here. We’ll come back in a few hours’ time. I’ll stay with you, show you some of the city. We can let Ayo go home.”

Ayo quirks an eyebrow. “Are you sure you want to watch this one for that long? Okoye says he is trouble.”

Nakia smirks. “I’m aware. But it’s fine. Go home and rest, sister. I’ve got this.”

Sam rolls his eyes at them talking about him like some rowdy delinquent teenager in need of babysitting, but doesn’t say anything. He has a very bad feeling about Nakia’s intentions for getting him all to herself for a few hours, but he’s reasonably sure she’s not going to cause him actual bodily harm, and he’s got too much pride to fight it and make it obvious how much she intimidates him, so he just lets Ayo go with a thank you and obediently follows Nakia out of the hospital.

 

Nakia takes him to a small coffee shop a short walk away. She is, naturally, well known to the proprietor, and they are quickly served two steaming cups of the richest smelling coffee Sam has ever borne witness to. Nakia’s usual order, apparently. No sugar or cream has been provided, although Sam can see them available behind the counter, and Nakia does not ask if he would like some. He can’t help but snicker to himself at the subtle power move, glad that he’s always been a black coffee kind of guy anyway, and he takes his first sip without hesitating.

“Wow,” he says. Doesn’t really mean to, but it’s _good_. Nakia smirks and drinks casually from her own cup.

“I’ve travelled all over the world, but no coffee has ever beaten this.” She sighs a little with contentment and takes another sip, and Sam considers himself a little endeared to her. Nakia’s got quite the girl-next-door vibe going on when she isn’t caving in a man’s skull.

Sam savours his coffee a little while longer, taking the time to absorb the atmosphere a little as more customers come in and fill the place with sleepy chatter. He feels Nakia watching him as much as he’s trying not to watch her, like she’s waiting for him to start the conversation, but he’s got no idea what to say. Thanks for the coffee? I owe you my life? I swear me and your ex are just friends who made out once? He’s honestly got nothing.

Thankfully Nakia only seems prepared to wait him out for so long, and they’re halfway through their cups when she puts hers down on the table and folds her hands together in front of her. “I’ve done some research into you, Sam Wilson. You’re an interesting man.”

“Thank you?”

“You had an impressive military career before losing your partner, after which you sought a discharge and eventually found work counselling other traumatised veterans.”

“I remember.”

“You befriended Steve Rogers in Washington DC and gave him refuge when HYDRA infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and declared him a target, and then helped him in the battle that followed. You have been a loyal friend and comrade to him ever since, joining The Avengers at his recommendation and siding with him when he decided to go against The Accords that our late king T’Chaka put so much work into developing with the U.N. You have since been imprisoned by secret American government forces, granted asylum in Wakanda, and now you have somehow caught the attentions of T’Challa.”

Sam groans, seeing where this is going. “Look...”

“I am not playing the role of the jealous ex, here.” Nakia leans forward, and there’s no anger in her posture, only earnestness. “I am T’Challa’s friend first and I care about his happiness. If that happiness involves you, then fine. My concern is that you have appeared at a time when he is vulnerable and hurting, and I worry his feelings for you are stronger than yours are for him. But you are a good man, as far as I can tell. You have honour, and courage, and empathy. It’s probably what he likes about you. Can I trust you to do the right thing by him?”

Sam breathes in deep. He honestly has no idea where to start with all of that. The fact is that he agrees with almost every damn word (and he ignores the tiny part of him wondering about T’Challa’s feelings being stronger because he has absolutely no intention of going _there_ ). He decides it’s best to be as honest as he can be.

“Nakia, I’m not gonna deny that there’s been some flirtation going on. Maybe some feelings. But I know he’s in a vulnerable place right now, and honestly? So am I. I’ve already told him we can’t be more than friends, and I’m just trying not to suck at that right now. So you and me are actually on the same team. I hope. Because I know nothing about you other than you saved my life and all the Dora Milaje like you which I assume is a good sign?”

Nakia narrows her eyes at him, weighing up whether or not she believes him. After a few seconds she seems to see something that satisfies her, and she sits back and smiles, more than a little smug. “Most of them hate you.”

Sam huffs out a short laugh. “Yeah. I’d noticed.”

“Don’t take it personally. You’re an outsider. They don’t trust outsiders.”

She turns around and makes a gesture to the barista, and a few moments later he’s bringing over two pastries and setting them down in front of them. They smell savoury and heavily spiced. “A peace offering,” she says, nudging Sam’s plate a little closer to him. “If you’re T’Challa’s friend, then you’re my friend too. And I make sure my friends eat properly.”

Sam doesn’t need telling twice, mouth already watering. He’d managed to force down a single piece of fruit before coming out, and that was after skipping dinner the night before. Now a lot of the worry about Teshi has lifted, he’s absolutely _starving_. Nakia raises an eyebrow when he devours his in two bites, but she seems amused more than offended.

“Thanks. I was, uh...I was pretty hungry,” he says, wiping some grease from the corner of his mouth. Nakia just rolls her eyes and eats her own at a much more leisurely pace. The intriguing mix of spices lingering on Sam’s tongue make him regret not doing the same, and he wonders if he can get away with asking for another, then decides not to push his luck.

“So,” he says, picking up his coffee. “Am I allowed to ask you questions about yourself, or are you committed to the whole international woman of mystery thing?”

Nakia smirks. “I suppose that depends on the questions.”

“Alright.” Sam thinks for a moment. He’s played this game with Nat before, only with a lot more base knowledge to help tip-toe around potential landmines. With Nakia, he’s flying blind. Best start off as inoffensive as possible. “Were you ever a Dora Milaje?”

She laughs. “No. Almost, but no.”

“What’s that mean? Almost?”

“It means almost. My father trained me for that life since I was a girl, but I wanted something different for myself.”

“I get that. My mom wanted me to be a lawyer, have a nice steady paycheck, fancy office. She never thought I’d sign up for the military in a million years.”

“And why did you?”

Sam thinks back to the idealistic kid he’d been back then, standing in that enlistment office, itching to get out there and serve. He smiles fondly at the memory. “Oh, you know. Action, adventure, the chance to do some good in the world.”

Nakia’s eyes meet his and she calmly holds his gaze while she cocks her head. “It seems we are more alike than I thought,” she says, and Sam finds that response to be _very_  interesting.

“You’re not a soldier...” he prompts.

Nakia grins. “Not in the conventional sense.”

“And what does that mean?”

The grin turns playful. “Now that is a question that you would have to ask T’Challa. Official state secret of Wakanda. All I can possibly say is that my father’s training was not wasted in the end.”

The lightbulb flips on then, and Sam laughs. “I get it. You’re a spy. Wow, okay. That explains a lot.”

Nakia shrugs. “I would not use that word. What I do is much more than simply gathering intelligence, but I suppose that’s the closest reference you would have.” She stands up then and efficiently stacks their empty crockery in the middle of the table. The owner calls out a thanks to her, and she gives him a warm beaming smile, before turning to Sam and gesturing for him to get up as well. “Come on, there’s more to see.”

 

Nakia takes Sam to a large square not far from the palace, overlooked by apartment blocks and offices. He can’t help being enamoured with the architecture, the way it feels inherently modern even though there’s a distinct lack of giant glass panes and steel sprouting from the ground. Instead it’s rough and smooth stone and bright colours, curving up and around to form these towering structures that seem to belong there in that space just as much as the trees beyond them. Of course, the buildings are merely backdrop to the obvious attraction of the square – a ten foot tall panther carved from what has to be obsidian, prowling on all fours and gazing confidently ahead, neither passive nor threatening, just gleaming in the sun like some kind of mythical creature come to life.

“Is this Bastet?” he asks.

“This is an interpretation. Or perhaps Bastet is an interpretation of this. We worship the Panther God, and she is the panther god, but she is also Bastet. And this is the Panther God, although it may not quite be Bastet.” Nakia laughs to herself and shakes her head. “Our traditions have become splintered and woven back together many times over the millennia. It’s difficult to explain.”

“Most religions are.” Sam’s mind inevitably drifts back to the statue in the palace roof gardens, and then there’s a stab of panic wondering exactly how much Nakia knows about that and whether she’s about to make a point here about respect and sanctity or something like that. She just keeps gazing fondly at the statue, however, and motions for Sam to come over and look where she’s looking.

“The right shoulder, can you see? Look at the top.” She points, and Sam follows her finger until he notices a smooth indent that, now he’s seen it, seems like it shouldn’t be there. “That’s a handhold, worn away year after year by countless children climbing up to sit upon the mighty panther’s shoulders and feel it’s strength. It’s happened ever since this statue was first placed here.”

Sam nods. “I can see why. I would have loved to climb on top of that thing when I was a kid.” He steals a glance at Nakia to see her still gazing fondly at the statue. “I take it you had your turn on this thing?”

She smiles. “My first trip to the city, I was too small to reach. I was so upset, I cried my heart out, until my father lifted me up and placed me there himself. He said there was no shame in needing help, that sometimes there was greater strength in standing together to achieve things, and that was how Wakanda was built after all, but I was determined to make it myself. I came back that night when no one was around and I tried climbing it from every angle until finally I realised I could shimmy up the tail and pull myself up onto the rear, and then slowly shuffle down towards the shoulders. Which I did, and I felt /amazing/, like I’d conquered the entire world. But then of course I was stuck. Couldn’t get back down again. My father was furious when he finally found me, crying again.”

Sam chuckles at the story, surprised at the openness Nakia is showing in sharing it. Now he’s looking he can easily see the stubborn, determined little girl in her, all grown up and refined now. He can understand what T’Challa saw in her, and what he maybe still sees. Sam still has no idea what went down between them, and why she’s an ex instead of a current girlfriend. He’s not really sure he wants to know, just in case there’s unfinished business there. He ignores the tiny murmur of jealousy that rears up at that thought. He’s got no place feeling it.

Nakia turns to him then, mischief in her eyes, and asks, “Would you like to ride the panther?” She keeps her face wide and innocent, enough that it’s obvious the question is anything but, and Sam nearly chokes on his own spit trying not to react to the images her double entendre is conjuring up. “I can recommend it...” she continues, starting to grin now. Sam can’t think of any smart comebacks. He’s too flustered and judging by Nakia’s face, she knows it too.   

“Let’s just make our way back to the hospital,” he grumbles, already walking away as she starts laughing at him. Dammit, he really _does_  like her now.

  
*

  
Teshi is up and awake by the time they get back to his room. His friends are all around his bed, making him laugh, and Sam hesitates at the door, not wanting to disturb them. Teshi spots him almost immediately, and waves him in enthusiastically.

“I worried I was never going to see you again!” he says. “Everyone, you remember Sam?”

“We remember you dancing with him,” the woman answers, waggling her eyebrows. She holds out a hand for Sam to shake. “I’m Nombeko, this is Kojo and Obasi.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Sam shakes everyone’s hands and looks behind him at Nakia. “Uh, this is Nakia. She’s the one who helped us last night.”

“I _thought_  I saw an angel...” Teshi says, boldly flirting. Nakia rolls her eyes at the comment.

“You’re lucky I was there. Did you know the men who attacked you? I’ve already given all the details I can to the police.”

The playful smile drops from Teshi’s face. “Is that really necessary?”

“Of course it is!” Nombeko puts a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t let them terrorise you like this.”

Teshi’s face closes off and he looks away. Sam knows what he’s scared of. He knows it all too well. He grew up with his own schoolyard bullies, always worried that saying something would bring on something worse. Some things never really change.

“I’m just glad to see you’re okay,” he says. “We got beat pretty bad back there.”

Teshi nods. “I know. I’m sorry for that, it’s my fault.”

“Hey, no! Let’s get that straight right away, okay? Not your fault. At all. No one did anything wrong except the assholes who jumped us, and I ain’t standing for you thinking anything different, you hear me?” Sam steps right up to the bed and gets in Teshi’s line of vision, waiting for him to look up and meet his eyes. When he eventually does, there’s a small nod of agreement, but Sam knows the look of a man just wanting to forget a thing ever happened and Teshi is the model example of it right now.

He takes a deep breath and sits down, taking Teshi’s hand in both of his and giving it a gentle squeeze. “This is not something you have to apologize to anyone for. Ever. Especially not me, okay? You were showing me a really great time before those guys showed up and I really needed that, so thank you.” Behind him, Nombeko, Kojo and Obasi start sniggering, but Sam ignores them. “I’m only sorry I wasn’t more help in the fight. Trust me, my friends aren’t gonna let me forget that one in a hurry. Avengers aren’t supposed to get taken down by a few thugs in an alley.”

Kojo snorts. “We weren’t going to say anything, but now that you mention it...”

Sam turns to give him a mild dose of stink eye, but surprisingly it’s Nakia who jumps in.

“In Sam’s defence, he is not at his physical peak right now.”

Nombeko gives him a lecherous once over. “You mean he gets better than _this_?”

“Stop it, all of you, you’re so embarrassing!” Teshi says, laughing even as he says it. Sam’s glad to see him relax again, although he worries it won’t last once Teshi’s on his own. He decides to leave Dr Lundi’s information somewhere for him to find before he goes. Hopefully that’ll help.

“Well, I’m hungry.” Obasi declares. “I’m going to go get some breakfast.” He looks around at the others, very noticeably not moving towards the door yet, and a beat later Nombeko and Kojo are also announcing an intense desire to go and get food. They all pile out of the room in a cacophony of noise, somehow extracting a breakfast order from Teshi in all the chaos, and then suddenly it’s just Sam and Teshi in the room. Even Nakia has stepped outside to give them a moment (although he suspects she hasn’t gone far). Sam laughs.

“Your friends are subtle.”

Teshi lets out a dramatic sigh. ”Subtle as rhinos.” His hand is still resting between Sam’s, and he places his other one on top, gently running his thumb over Sam’s knuckles. “It really was a pleasure to meet you, Sam Wilson. I will never forget it, for good reasons more than bad.”

Sam feels a little rush of flattery. He doesn’t really know what to say, but then he clocks the vibe Teshi’s giving him with his serious eyes and the fact that he’s not clasping Sam’s hand at all, leaving him free to pull away whenever he wants. He’s letting him go without a fuss, drawing a line under the whole experience for him. Now he /really/ doesn’t know what to say, overwhelmed by a weird mix of guilt and relief. He hadn’t come here expecting to say goodbye, but now he thinks about it, he hadn’t really wanted anything else.

“I wish it hadn’t ended up with you in here,” is what eventually comes out. “You take care of yourself, you hear?”

Teshi smiles. “I will. And if I don’t, my friends will not hesitate to step in, I’m sure.” They both laugh at that, and Sam finally pulls his hands away so he can step back and put them in his pockets instead.

“See you around?” he says. Teshi nods.

“Thank Nakia for me. Tell her I really am grateful for what she did.”

“Of course.” Sam starts backing out of the room then, discreetly pulling out Lundi’s card and leaving it on a side table. He’s pretty sure he should be feeling like more of an asshole right now, but Teshi seems to want the clean break as much as he does. So he leaves, picking Nakia up on the way a few feet down the corridor. She gives him a quizzical look, but says nothing, and together they start walking back towards the palace.

 

Nakia buys him another coffee on the way, plus a whole tray to take back with him for the rest of the gang. He’s not _entirely_  sure what he’s done to deserve it, but he hopes he finds out.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set largely in Wakanda post-Civil War but was started before the Black Panther movie came out, so it will be very AU.  
> I have combined various different references from comics and my own imagination, hopefully all inaccuracies can be forgiven in the name of creative licence..


End file.
